Streetlights and Starlight
by alwaysflying
Summary: Avenue B, Circa 1980. When two new roommates are brought into Collins and Benny's loft, the two new blondes clash more than anyone would have thought possible. At the same time, however, they begin a wayward affair, with every kiss brutal and demanding.
1. I

Streetlights and Starlight

by alwaysflying

**Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson made the puppets dance, I'm just painting a backdrop. Discard it if you will. **

"Benny?" calls Collins. "Benny, I'm gonna go take a walk, 'kay, man?"

"Sure, whatever," comes the uninterested response of the aspiring businessman. Collins shrugs. He hadn't expected an animated reply from his loftmate, particularly not as Benny is busily writing yet another job application, hoping that "it'll be different this time." Collins personally believes that while Benny will get the job of his dreams one day, it won't be happening while he and his friend are still struggling to keep their stale Captain Crunch intake to a minimum due to lack of money.

Outside, the breeze hits Collins's face fiercely. He stumbles backwards and backs up, expecting to hit the front of the building – but no, the pressure against his back never comes. He turns around to find himself at the mouth of an alleyway, and, feeling rather stupid, regains his balance. Realizing that he dropped his glasses, Collins gets to his hands and knees and begins searching. It shouldn't be this hard to find golden round-rectangle-shaped glasses, even amidst all the other garbage on the ground, but it takes him a moment even to squint hard enough to make out the fuzzy-lined shapes, particularly without streetlights or starlight.

"This yours?" rasps a familiar voice. Collins turns to face his anonymous drug dealer, his goatee and expensive clothes looking remarkably out of place in the dirty alleyway. Not as though Collins can actually see the marks of The Man's wealth – he knows them as he knows keys on a keyboard, without glancing down at them. He knows the sharp face of the drug dealer and the polished, almost sparkling clothing and shoes he wears. Amid all these thoughts, it takes Collins an absurdly long amount of time to spot his cracked glasses in The Man's hand.

Collins murmurs his assent and reaches an outstretched arm to the drug dealer. The Man begrudingly places the glasses in the bohemian's hand. "Take 'em," he grunts, watching meticulously as Collins nods, slides them onto his face, and blinks twice to adjust to the new vision.

"Thanks."

The Man gives Collins a look of utter disgust and loathing – most likely due to the fact that Collins has long since kicked the habit of buying ziploc packets of smack. A loyal customer, Collins had been one of The Man's best and most reliable clients – he had even referred three others to The Man. An expert in negotiating, The Man has long since decided that it would be best to convince Collins to restart his drug habit. But how…

Collins had never quite thought of his former dealer as a living, talking human being – he'd never seemed human to Collins for the sole reason that he had never displayed any emotions at all. Collins and his drug dealer had never spoken. A handshake – money in one hand, a tiny bag in the other, then a switch and a muttered thanks – was the most intimate they'd ever gotten up until today. But now – it changes, and Collins is startled.

"You know," The Man says, his voice echoing against the brick, "you wouldn't need them glasses if you were still on smack. Sharpens your vision."

Collins stares at the ground. God, hasn't he tried this enough times before? It's so enticing, like a stripper (male, of course, in Collins's case) flashing various anatomical assets in one's face. But a different body part is tempted by smack than by a nice ass, and now Collins is (against his will) fully alert, despite the fact that he loathes everything having to do with this vile man and his disgusting business.

"Yeah?" Collins asks, almost half-interested. He's heard The Man's spiel thousands of times, of course – always spoken by satisfied clients or other dealers, never The Man himself – but somehow now, with nothing better to do but listen to Benny make boring phone calls, it seems far more tempting. "Makes me last longer, too, eh?" he asks, with an obvious glance down at another asset, this one half-prominent due to the cold.

"Yeah," The Man agrees. "Much longer." He has a half-smirk – just a touch more of a smirk than he usually wears, anyway – and looks as though it'll just take another split second to convince Collins. Just one more excuse, another reason, another way – "It builds up your immune system," he says in a single breath. Maybe, maybe, maybe –

Collins hesitates. He'll almost believe anything at this point, anything to just get away from the constant ache and worry and fear. "Can I – " he begins, but cuts himself off. No, no, no, he can't start this again – immune system, it'll be stronger – but oh god it feels so good, the needle, the powder – "No. I don't want any."

The Man lets out an almost inaudible hiss of dissatisfaction. "Are you sure?"

Collins grits his teeth. "Yes," he snarls. "Get out of my sight."

He collapses against the alleyway wall and slides down to the ground, hugging his knees. He almost – almost fell for it, almost succumbed to the darkness again, can't do it again, can't lose control like that. A moment later a tap on his shoulder interrupts his thoughts. "I told you I didn't want any – " he begins, furiously, until he realizes that the eyes blinking at him are green, not gray, and are set on the face of a pale, skinny boy who can't be older than sixteen.

"This is my spot," the boy announces in a voice raspy from underuse. "I sleep here. You can't just – "

"Hey, man, back off," Collins snaps tiredly. "I'm not staying here. I just needed a place to sit." He gets to his feet sloppily and takes a good look at the boy. He is absurdly thin – it looks like he's been living on the streets for a long time. His hair, colorless in the darkness, is long and hangs to his shoulderblades. Oversized clothes barely cover him, and his face and hands are blue. Collins doesn't see how a boy this young can already be homeless and starving – but then he sees the silvery glint of a needle poking out of the teenager's pocket, and he understands.

"You cold?" he asks the boy. The green eyes fly up to meet Collins's gaze sharply, and the boy looks on the verge of snapping something along the lines of it not being anyone's business. To prevent that, Collins adds, "Me'n my roommate got enough money last month to get candles and shit. It's almost warm enough to wear just two layers!" He chuckles darkly to himself and, to the teenager, continues, "You can stay with us if you want."

"I don't need pity," the boy grumbles. Collins sees three conflicting desires in the boys' eyes. Pride, of course, is one of them as the boy refuses to accept any sort of advantage that might keep him from dying in an alleyway. Another is passion – the boy clearly has something to live for, something that's keeping him from giving up and slicing the needle along his milk-white arms. And lastly, Collins sees that the boy is desperately in search of something. Something important. He can't put his finger on what it _is_, exactly. A family? A home? Heat? Food?

Collins kneels down and speaks calmly to the teenager. "Would you rather stay here the rest of your life? You know it won't be very long until it's too cold. You can already see your breath when you talk, can't you? How long do you think it'll be until the streets are paved with ice, and it's snowing?"

The boy doesn't answer, and it's enough for him. "Come on," he insists. "My roommie and I have candles and a wood-burning stove. You'll be warm. There's enough Captain Crunch to last us at least another week, too. How old are you, anyway?"

Confirming Collins's prior suspicions, the boy whispers, "Sixteen."

"Sixteen. I was nineteen when I moved in with Benny. Seven years of pure agony," he laughs. "I'm Collins, by the way. Tom Collins. You?"

The boy's eyes flicker from Collins to the mouth of the alleyway and the street ahead. "Roger," he whispers. "I'm Roger. Roger Davis." He wraps his arms around himself and shivers. Collins is right. It's too cold to be outside now. It's always too cold… even when it's warm.

Collins is distracted for a moment when a series of quick, shrill beeps declares that it is time for him to take his AZT. "Damnit," he grumbles, and fishes an orange pill out of his pocket, places it on his tongue, and dry-swallows. Roger watches in awe, his eyes wide. "What _is _it, kid?" Collins demands.

"You have it too?" Roger whispers.

"Come on," Collins says without another word. "You're coming inside with me."

Roger takes the proffered hand and lets Collins hoist his ninety-pound body to his feet. "Thanks," he whispers, and allows himself to become the darker man's shadow as they tread to and up the stairs of Collins's building. Neither Collins nor Roger anticipates or even considers Benny's reaction; Collins is too concerned that neither he nor Roger trips over the unreliable stairs, and Roger worries that perhaps Collins is a rapist or mass-murderer or something along those lines. He runs those thoughts through his head unconcernedly: after all, if Collins kills him, it'll only be a few weeks or months or even years before he was scheduled to die anyway, and he'll even get a few moments of warmth out of it.

"Benny!" Collins yells when he reaches the door to the loft. "Could you open the damn door?"

A moment later, it slides open with an audible moan, and Benny blinks repeated. "Who's the kid?" he asks.

Collins shrugs. "He's Roger. I found him on the street. Can he stay with us?"

Benny doesn't answer, just steps aside so Roger and Collins can enter, and as the door shrieks to a close, the three young men collapse against the rickety couch and exchange meaningless words. Two pairs of brown eyes are reflected in green, and Roger simply watches in near-silence as a bohemian mini-party unfolds. Collins has a glass bottle of Stoli that he shares with his companions, Benny a deck of cards inspiring a game of Strip Poker – and when Roger tentatively offers his powder and needle to the other men, he is met only with awkward glances, uncomfortable shuffling, and a shake of both men's heads. Shyly, Roger glances at the floor and does not look up until the cold glass rim of the Stoli bottle is pressed against his chin. He takes a long sip and when he sets it back down on the table, Collins and Benny wrap their arms and blankets around his shoulders.

"Can I stay here?" Roger whispers. His answer is only the cackling of the now-empty Stoli bottle as it dances across the table, leaving drips of liquid in its wake.


	2. II

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**by alwaysflying**

**Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson made the puppets dance, I'm just painting a backdrop. Discard it if you will. **

In the morning, Roger wakes up to the smell of coffee and rolls over on the floor, wishing his dreams weren't quite so realistic and unrealistic at the same time. It smells almost exactly like coffee, and yet he hasn't had the relaxing delicacy since his Scarsdale days, back in high school, between heavy taunting and fantasies of the smart, attractive, popular Mark Cohen… but the rememberances fade, and Roger's eyes flutter open. Green orbs survey the room, and he realizes: he is on the floor of Collins and Benny's loft, hugging his knees to protect himself from the cold. The unoccupied couch watches him mockingly in its moderate comfort and warmth, a blanket draped over it, but Roger can't bring himself to get it, not when he's so comfortable on the floor. He shouldn't be so comfortable. He knows he shouldn't. But surely it's better than the hard ground, littered with empty soda cans and torn-up napkins and abandoned nickels and dimes. Isn't it?

Collins's footsteps awaken the blonde, and Roger sits up attentively, not wanting to be rude. "Morning," he half-coughs, nodding at the man who might be his roommate, now. Collins responds with a nod and a gesture towards the coffee-filled paper cup near the former location of Roger's head. "This for me?" Roger asks, head cocked to the side, and Collins laughs.

"Yeah," he replies hoarsely. "What? Don't like coffee? Try it anyway. It's all we got here, so you'd better get used to it."

Roger takes a long sip, wincing. Too bitter for his liking. In response to what Collins just said, he asks confusedly, "So you mean I'm allowed to stay? I mean – permanently? Or until you kick me out, or something?" He watches his feet, nearly bare as the last cotton threads of his decade-old socks cling together helplessly. The blonde is terrified of what may happen if Collins changes his mind. He loves it here in the loft, much as it pains him to admit that he is anything but indifferent to the course of his life.

Collins snorts. "Of course. If you want to stay, that is. 'Course, I can't see why you wouldn't. Better than on the streets, i'n't it? People taking your sidewalk squares and all that." He laughs hollowly. "Damn. Gotta take my AZT. You said you need 'em too?"

Eyes downcast, Roger nods. At Collins's beckon, he hoists himself to his feet and crosses the room to reach the other man. Collins slides him a bright orange pill that catches the light provided by the window. "Thanks," Roger mutters, and dry-swallows it, idly wondering how much longer he'll live, even with the pill. Another thought crosses his mind, this one being the déjà vu of having a drug slipped to him in a similarly emotionless manner. He bites back that thought, deciding not to tell his host that he's just been unknowingly compared to a drug dealer. Roger silently curses himself for thinking such a thought.

"Tastes like shit," Collins announces with dry humor. "It's an improvement."

"Isn't the point of a pill that they don't taste like anything?" Roger points out. He always makes his points in question form, not wanting to seem like he knows everything, or in fact anything, or even anything _close _to anything. "I mean, especially if you take it dry…" He trails off. Collins is looking at him oddly. "Sorry," he mumbles. He tucks a strand of scraggly blond hair behind his ear.

Collins shrugs. "Whatever. Don't be so tense."

Roger learns from that statement. He becomes comfortable around Collins and Benny, hard as it is to believe. Weeks pass, and eventually he comes to think of the couch, the loft, and the East Village as his home, just another extention of Roger Davis, the way his guitar used to be an extention of him, his parents, his school. Benny and Collins, he learns, are his older brothers, parents, and best friends all at the same time. They are the ones who watch Roger out of the corners of their eyes when he's half-alone, making sure he isn't shooting up again. He shoots up sometimes, outside, huddled up in his coat with slow, dizzy songs playing through his mind. But he rarely needs to. The satisfaction of having a family and a life now is enough to keep Roger from needing heroin as the weeks slide into months.

One morning, Roger is shaken awake by Collins. At his demand of what could possibly be so important that he might need to wake up before noon, Roger is told that "Benny's ex-roommie – from Brown, you know, he went to Brown – is coming over today. He just moved down here from some town upstate. Scrapesville or something. He might need a place to crash, so you may have a floor buddy tonight." He laughs hoarsely. "Or not. I don't know. Mark – that's his name, I think, or maybe Mike – seems pretty smart, so maybe he'll be able to get a place somewhere else, but if not…"

Roger nods numbly, trying not to think of Scarsdale. "Okay. Is that a hint for me to shower? 'Cause I know I haven't showered in – god, you don't even want to know how long."

"Considering you haven't showered since you moved in, and probably before that, I'd say it's about time to get clean," Collins announces humorously, steering a nodding Roger into the bathroom, whose door doesn't lock. "The curtain's see-through, so if Benny walks in, just kick him somewhere below the waist and he'll leave pretty fast." With that, Collins exits, and Roger is left to himself.

Scarsdale. Scrapesville. The two are similar, aren't they? They sound similar enough that a junkie, or ex-junkie, or recovering junkie could get confused, don't they? He lets the harsh running water wash over him as he muses over it. And _Mark_… Brown… is this too much of a coincidence? Roger hasn't even thought of Mark Cohen since his first night here, and before that, since his last few days in school. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets the water run through his impossibly long hair. When he lets his eyes open, he glances down and is mildly disturbed to find the floor of the shower caked with dirt that probably wasn't there before Roger entered. He doesn't care. He's never really liked showers anyway.

Roger vaguely remembers his first year of high school, watching the always proud, beautiful senior as he flaunted his acceptance into Brown by wearing a mail-order sweatshirt with the university's insignia. He remembers complimenting the older boy, and the upward curl of Mark's lip as he cocked his head and asked if he and Roger had spoken before, if they knew each other. Roger, unable to bring himself to answer, had walked off, hearing the giggles and comments of the popular boy's popular friends. "Wannabe rocker," he'd heard, and ducked into the bathroom to wash off his eyeliner before tears chased it down his pale cheeks.

When he emerges from the shower, his hair is clean (scrubbed throughly with soap rather than the shampoo Collins and Benny don't own, having no hair and therefore no use for it), his entire body nearly sparkling. He realizes before opening the bathroom door, however, that his only clothes are strewn across the ground, dirt-encrusted and vile. He would normally have no problem wearing them, but… if it's Mark…

_No_. Of course it isn't the Mark Roger knows. There must be a million towns and cities that sound like Scrapesville, and a million people named Mark or Mike who went to Brown, even ones that came from towns and cities that sound like Scrapesville. But nevertheless, Roger feels oddly compelled to –

The door swings open, and a very loud yelp sounds from Roger. "I don't care," Benny grumbles, and, ignoring the extremely naked Roger, plants himself down on the toilet, leaving a wide-eyed teenager staring at him in horror. "What?" Benny demands. "You took four hours. Mark'll be here soon. Why are you naked?"

Roger rolls his eyes. "Because I got out of the shower about five seconds ago, as you probably heard. These walls are like paper, snore-ass. Do you have any clothes I could borrow?" Is soap toxic? Can it provide a high, if swallowed? Maybe Roger accidentally consumed some. Or maybe his body is going into shock after having AZT for the first time in – ever. Ever. Since he was diagnosed. He could only recognize the pills because Dr. Shven had showed them to him, way back when Roger was first tested.

"Yeah," Benny says in response to Roger's question. "I'll get you some." A flushing sound follows, and Roger stands in the shower, out of sight to anyone peering in the door. As Benny's footsteps reenter the bathroom, however, three things happen at once: Roger begins to change into the far-too-large clothes, the phone rings, and Roger spots his needle on the floor. It obviously slid out of his pants pocket when he wasn't looking. But before he can grab it and hide it, Benny catches sight of it – sunlight streams in through the window, drawing attention to the silver object – and, without a word, flings it and the accompanying stash out the window.

"Fuck! What did you do that for?" Roger yells.

Benny smirks. "Your health," he announces. "Get dressed." And before Roger can say another word, Benny leaves and closes the door, interrupting the answering machine message that is playing as Collins screens the call. So Roger, unable to hear who is talking, hurriedly throws on Benny's clothes. He looks terrible, he knows, but it's better than wearing his old clothes, especially if it's the Mark he knows that is coming over. With that, Roger thrusts his own clothing into the cabinet under the sink and runs his hands through his hair. He looks fine, or as fine as he possibly could. So with a deep breath, Roger opens the door and steps into the loft just as the front door slides open and a strawberry-blonde with rectangular glasses and a blazer steps inside. Two years have passed, but Roger still recognizes the boy – now a man – and lets his jaw drop.

"Mark," he says quietly, before Benny calls him to the front.

"Mark, pal," Benny says. "You know Collins, right? He used to come over all the time, hang with us a lot. And this is my buddy Roger. He lives here too, the newest addition to bohemia-land. Mark, Roger. Roger, Mark." He steps aside so the two blondes can face each other.

"Nice to meet you," Mark says warmly. He extends his hand for Roger to shake, which Roger does, not wanting to ever let go. But he does, withdrawing his hand slowly and sliding it into his pocket, letting Mark's warmth tingle against his thighs. "I'm Mark Cohen. Benny's old roommate at Brown. Do I – know you from somewhere?"

Oh, god. Roger almost screams with delight, but contains himself and simply lets his eyes sparkle and dance, resolving to celebrate later, when he isn't being watched. "Yeah," Roger says, trying to sound nonchalant. "We went to high school together. You graduated when I was a freshman. Roger Davis. Remember me?"

Mark nods unsurely. "I think so. Maybe. You wanted to be a rock star, right?"

Great. "Yeah," Roger admits. He hopes he sounds like music was a dream he's long since abandoned and let die. "Ah, the dreams of the youth," he muses in a sickeningly fake voice. Collins is watching skeptically, clever eyes darting from blonde to blonde. He knows Roger too well for this façade to seem like anything but plastic to him. "And you were popular," the still-hoping musician adds. "You were always content."

Mark definitely looks uncomfortable now. "Possibly," he allows himself to say, and then turns to Benny. "Good news, man," he tells his former roommate. "I'm gonna stay here for a few months."

Benny smiles and ushers Mark into his room, where they talk. Or fuck, Roger thinks to himself bitterly. God. That was terrible. Before he can beat himself up about it too much, he feels a hand on his shoulder. "Not now, Collins, please," Roger mumbles. "I don't want this now, I want my stash."

"No," Collins says firmly, and that's that. He lets Roger relax his head against his shoulder. "You knew him in high school, huh. I guess you two weren't friends. Lemme guess: he was part of the popular crowd, and you were just an outcast. Am I right?"

"Yes," Roger says, and is horrified to discover that his voice is something of a sniffle, a whimper, a sob. It's not quite there yet – anyone who didn't know Roger well could mistake it for an AIDS-caused vocal tremble or simply a fluke – but Collins spots it, and Roger spots it. "I always… I liked him," he confesses. "Only him. Nobody else. Met him in eighth grade – had a fucked-up school system, seventh through twelfth was high school – and I just… you know. I was so…" Roger trails off, searching for a word that could describe his feelings for Mark. "Infatuated," he finishes at last. "I was infatuated with him. I wanted to _know_ him, I wanted to _be _him, and I wanted to _have_ him."

Collins sighs. He hadn't known Roger was gay, but it explains more than it doesn't. In any case, his sexuality doesn't have to do with the problem. Had either Roger or Mark been a girl, the problem would still lie as it is. "I know," he says at last, and he does know. He's had enough crushes… "I know what you're feeling, Roger, and I know you don't think I do, but I do." God, that sounds so cliché.

"Do you?" Roger asks quietly, not wanting to offend his only source of comfort. "Do you really? How do I fix this?"

And it is in times like these that Collins is a parent, a caretaker, a guardian to Roger. Their relationship is multi-faceted and confusing at times, but anyone looking at them through any sort of objective lens could immediately label Collins and Roger as father and son, respectively, perhaps despite their racial differences and closeness in age. "I don't know how you fix this," Collins admits. "I've never dealt with anything like this. This is quite a unique predicament you've found yourself in, Rog."

Roger sniffles helplessly, no longer caring how disgusted he is with himself. "Should I just… forget how I feel about him? Should I ignore it? What if he feels the same way and I never know? Aren't you supposed to know everything?" he demands. His eyes widen, and he clenches his fist. "God, Collins, what should I _do_?"

Collins shakes his head. "Do you really want to know what I think?"

"Yes," Roger answers immediately, no hesitation.

"I think you should get close to him," Collins says softly. "See how he thinks. Learn him. See if you still love him – like him, I mean – and if you do, _then_ tell him. That's what I think. Kay?"

Roger nods. "Okay."

The door swings open, and Benny and Mark step out, both laughing. "Okay, so, Roger, would you mind if Mark gets the couch? He's only gonna be here for a few weeks, or a few months, and he's a guest, so…"

"They can share the couch," Collins offers hurriedly. "It's big enough, right, Roger?"

"Right," Roger replies very tensely through half-gritted teeth. "That is – if it's okay with you, Mark," he adds shyly, trying to conceal his bright scarlet blush.

"Oh, it's fine," replies the strawberry blonde. "Absolutely."

With that, Benny, noticing the tenseness, swiftly grabs the loft's bronze key off the counter and offers, "Who wants to go to the Life Café, in honor of Mark's arrival? My treat."

A communal murmur of assent makes attendance at the Life mandatory, and without another word, the four young men depart for the intersection of Tenth Street and Avenue B.


	3. III

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**by alwaysflying**

**Disclaimer: No, I _still _don't own RENT. Isn't that funny? And I don't own the Life Café, either. Although I spend so much money there on a weekly basis that I may as well assume I pay a pretty big portion of the rent…**

"Hey, Roger, could you open the door, please?" Collins demands, banging hard on the restroom door. A passing waiter chuckles, recognizing the regulars' behavior. "You've been there for twenty minutes and I _know _what you're doing in there, and I heard you yell 'Mark' all the way across the café."

Roger throws the door open very swiftly after that and returns to the table, allowing Collins full access to the bathroom, which he hadn't needed anyway. The two men return to the table peacefully (Collins pulls Roger's hair; Roger punches Collins's shoulder) and sit down opposite Benny and Mark, still deep in college rememberances. "So, Mark," Roger interrupts, "if you don't mind my asking – didn't you only graduate high school two years ago? How can you be done with college now?"

Mark sighs. "I dropped out," he sighs. "Last year, Benny was my roomie, you know, and then he graduated – and it's just not fun anymore. Too studious, and I was in programs I didn't like and don't need to know about. All I really want to do is make movies, and I was in pre-med."

Roger nods. "Yeah, those are some of the reasons why I dropped out of – "

"So, Mark," Benny says loudly, "What exactly brings you to the city?"

Mark shrugs. "I needed somewhere to go, I guess. My parents weren't too pleased, Cindy – well, you know Cindy – "

"Cindy _Cohen_?" Roger repeats in disbelief. When two pairs of brown eyes (and one pair of blue) turn to face him, Roger blushes. "I… I remember her, is all."

Oh, he remembers Cindy Cohen all right. Innocent and lovely, tenth-grade Cindy had asked out eighth-grade Roger, back when he trusted easily and didn't think evil, condemning thoughts. Roger, shocked at actually being acknowled, had hurriedly agreed. Cindy's cerulean eyes had mesmerized him, and throughout the date, Roger had fought to discover exactly where he had seen those eyes before. When Mark picked Cindy up later (in his expensive, shiny car, to say the least), Roger realized why he was so drawn to the girl's eyes. They reminded him of his one and only love, _Mark_. He had never made the connection, however, that Mark Cohen and Cindy Cohen were siblings, even then, even after Cindy shriekingly told everyone Roger was gay over the loudspeaker during Mark's brief reign as student council president and co-controller of the P.A. system.

"Yeah," Mark mumbles now. "Okay. Whatever." Returning to his story, he continues, "Cindy's busy now, dealing with her wedding and all. That Berman must be a pretty special guy, the way she moons over him."

Oh, Berman Welldinger. Roger remembers Berman vividly, from his orange-red hair to his enormous hands and feet. The perfect stereotype of a class clown, Berman had been the first boy ever to throw a punch at Roger, way back in kindergarten. Roger is faintly certain that the tussle had something to do with apple juice, which he now loathes passionately. Regardless, The Berman Problem had continued all the way through Roger's very last day of school. There might have been something between Roger's one-time seductress and his long-time bully, but Roger is too busy staring at Mark's ass at the moment to think on that.

The food arrives, and Roger does not even look up, such is his focus on the strawberry-blonde. "Roger," Collins announces pointedly, making it clear that the blonde's staring is becoming obvious. Or at least that's what Roger thinks he means, but is horrified when Collins continues, "You're drooling." And to Roger's dismay, he _is_; a gooey, clear line of saliva stretches from his lower lip to just above his shirt collar.

"Oh, god," Roger mumbles. To make up for it, he insists, "Blame it on the panini." And he _has _drooled over Life Café paninis in the past; they're _that_ good. What Roger doesn't notice is that neither he nor anybody else at the table (nor, in fact, in the entire restaurant) has a panini at the moment, save for the one at this very moment being placed in front of Mark.

"Oh – you want some?" Mark asks, looking slightly revolted either with Roger's drool or simply Roger himself. "Sure, yeah, you can just…" he trails off as Roger shakes his head.

"Nah," Roger says lightly. "I'm good. But thanks."

There is a very long pause as each of the table's occupants _ding_s silverware together and begins their meals. "Very good," Collins says immediately, although he is by now used to the typically good quality of Life Café meals. His Life's Sloppy Joe is always delicious, and this is no exception.

"Excellent," Benny agrees, barely looking up from his Cuban sandwich. "Roger?"

"It's awesome," Roger agrees, mouth full of peanut butter and jelly. What can he say? – the Life Café makes delicious peanut butter and jelly, and it's not even on a kids' menu, which Roger would order from if possible. Well, the Life doesn't _have _a kids' menu, so Roger would have to go through a lot of trouble to gain access to one, but regardless… the teenager would do just about anything for the sticky, delicious taste of peanut butter and jelly.

All eyes turn to Mark, who is quietly beginning his portobello panini. He chews delicately with his mouth closed, and once he's finished the first bite, Mark nods slowly. "It's delicious," he murmurs in approval. "Very well seasoned." A bite of his salad has Mark even more impressed, and by the end of the meal, Mark is smirking delightedly. Brown isn't exactly known for its fine cooking – or, as he learned the hard way, its fun and fascinating curriculum.

"Bye, Jon," Roger and Collins call to a friend, a writer, on the way out. Their friend waves to them as they depart, and somehow the perfectly bohemian look of the four men is impossible for even the scatterbrained playwright to forget. They make their exit, but it is not their last.

When Benny, Roger, Collins, and Mark return to the loft, Mark plops down on Roger's couch and promptly falls asleep. It is only four-twenty-six in the afternoon, but for some reason it is easy for Benny and Collins to fall asleep as well. Roger, knowing nowhere else to stay, curls up on the floor as he did his first night here, and falls asleep too, with time.

He awakens later to the scent of Benny's cooking, which is surprisingly good (though not quite as good as the delectable food served at the Life). "What you making?" Roger asks sleepily, careful as he sits up not to bang his head on the underside of the couch. "Brisket again?"

"Nope," Benny replies proudly. "Working on something different. Mark's favorite food."

"Yeah? What's that?" Roger asks, stifling a yawn. Interesting. Despite the stalkeresque tendencies he'd harbored back in high school, he doesn't believe he'd never learned Mark's favorite food. It is a cause for mild alarm; despite knowing Mark's favorite color, song, movie and class, Roger never learned what the other boy liked to eat.

"Matzoh ball soup," Benny answers. "It's a soup, obviously – very Jewish. Mark's Jewish, you probably know that. Anyway, matzoh balls are these squishy, spongy little balls of unleavened dough that taste _really _good. Classic. 'Cept it takes _forever _to cook the whole soup, two days if you're doing it right. Though in restaurants they can have it done in an hour – it tastes like shit that way, you know. Never get matzoh ball soup from a restaurant, even if it's a deli." Breaking off from his rant, Benny yawns. "Sorry. Rambling again. I don't even know how I know so much about this shit. Mark taught me most of it, I guess."

Roger nods. "So how long have you known him? Just since last year?"

"Uh-huh," Benny replies, eyes somewhat narrowed. "You?"

Roger shrugs. "Ten years, give or take a few. Maybe it was eleven years. Yes, I think that's right, I think I met him when I was in kindergarten. So I was five… Uh-huh. Eleven years." He sighs deeply. "Damn. I always wanted to be his, uh, his friend, back in school. He ignored me, though. Everyone did. I really wasn't cool. I was… people said I cut myself, and did drugs, and stuff."

"You _did _do drugs," Benny points out. "You still do, if I'm to judge from that needle and stash. Or were you holding it for a friend?" he sneers, mocking Roger's last excuse. "And I thought everyone likes rock stars."

"Yeah," Roger agrees. "'Cept I _wasn't _a rock star. I wanted to be, and that wasn't enough. I wasn't trying hard enough, or I was trying _too _hard. Or maybe it was that I actually meant something by it. The turnoff in a musician is the depth," he explains, "and I have a lot of that. Always have."

"Yeah," Benny agrees. "Since I met you, you've been pretty deep. And you're right, they don't like that in school. I was never like that, though. I was upper-middle class and really bratty. I was student council treasurer once, and I was in the Future Entrepreneurs of America club a few years. Always liked money. Saved up every penny of allowance and my Tooth Fairy cash when I was little and spent it all on a car the day I turned sixteen. Went out 'to the mall', I told my parents, and returned in a Mercedes, twice as nice as the car they already had. They were _stunned_. Told 'em I bought it, they checked the papers, and it was valid. Nothing they could do."

Roger laughs. "I wasn't good at that. Music and sports were my things, except that nobody would ever pick me for their teams 'cause I was so skinny and short and my hair would always get in my eyes 'till I couldn't see and ran into a wall. I was _bad _at sports, but I liked running. I had to tie my hair back all the time, though. I never wanted to do soccer professionally, though, it was just there. And as for music, everyone in my school was a yuppie – they knew that I'd chosen the most exclusive, competitive business in the _world _to pursue. But I didn't have any money even to buy a guitar – still don't, obviously. And I always wanted a guitar. But I don't think anybody actually cared."

Benny frowns. "I never knew you wanted a guitar," he says accusingly. "You should have said something. When's your birthday?"

Roger shakes his head fiercely. "No – don't. Don't get me one. Don't even think about it. Really. How'd we afford the rent last month, remind me?"

Benny blushes. "Um, let's not go there," he decides firmly. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did, shithead."

"Don't be a smart-aleck," Benny replies automatically. "Well – did your parents kick you out? And how'd you get to the city from Scarsdale? And why?"

Roger pauses for so long that Benny returns to his ladle, assuming that he won't answer. But it comes as a surprise when, two minutes into the stirring, Roger begins to talk in a somewhat raspy voice.

"A few months before Collins found me on the streets here, I was back in Scarsdale. I was just madly in love with M – with this guy." He glances to Benny, hoping he didn't notice the slip. Luckily, he didn't, and Roger continues. "This _guy_," he adds. "I'm bisexual, but mostly gay. Anyway," he adds hurriedly before Benny can interrupt, "I was trying out for track because I wanted something to do, and he was there. When tryouts were over, we were in the showers, washing up, and the coach caught me watching him. Uh – the guy, I mean, not the coach. He freaked on me and called me names, then told my parents. And they kicked me out."

_You little fag! Get out of my house! I never want to see you again! _

"Except," Roger continues shakily as his father's words echo in his head, "that I didn't have anywhere to go. I had literally no friends that would take me in, and all my relatives that lived close enough had already been informed by my parents what had happened. So I stayed on the streets a few days and then one night, when my parents were out, I broke in and stole money, enough to get on a train. I didn't care where I'd end up, I just wanted to be away from Scarsdale. So I got off at a random spot, which turned out to be the city, and stuck with it. I had my own sidewalk square. I was pretty happy."

Roger shrugs and grabs a heavily-seasoned carrot out of the soup, popping it into his mouth. "Good," he announces, his mouth full. "Very good." With that, Benny shooes his loftmate out of the kitchen so he can think.

Roger chooses to sit on the fire escape. It's early evening now – seven-thirty, typical in the loft but for Mark's presence, Roger's near-constant erection, and Benny's cooking. It smells delicious inside, but Roger gives it up temporarily for the view of the city that he now has. Moments pass with Roger staring longingly at the sky, and then the window slides open and Collins steps outside as well.

"You okay, Rog?" he asks, arm over Roger's shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Here – want a light?" Collins offers, holding out a cigarette. "I wouldn't normally – I mean, I know you're only sixteen and all, but they help you think sometimes. And you kind of need that now, with Mark here – no offense. Clears your head."

Roger shakily accepts Collins's offering and puts it between his lips. "You ever done this before?" Collins asks as he struggles to light a match. "Smoke, I mean."

Roger shakes his head.

"Well, don't make it a habit," he tells the boy. "It's just that I think you need something to do with yourself – apart, of course, from wallowing in self-pity, because that's just unnecessary." Roger watches him amusedly as Collins repeatedly strikes the match against his matchbox. Finally, a tiny flame blossoms, and Collins touches it to Roger's smoke. The boy breathes in deeply, and Collins corrects, "No – don't take in too much. Exhale. Puff it out."

Roger nods and obeys, shuddering as he breathes out. "Feels weird," he mumbles, sounding somewhat whiny. "But… I can think better. 'S like a drug."

Collins laughs. "It is a drug, Roggie-pie. But since you're so high or stoned or whatever's going on in your little head, mind answering something for me?" he asks. Without waiting for an answer, Collins grabs Roger's forearm and twists it so that it is facing up. "Where'd you get these scars?" he demands.

Roger shakes his head and tries helplessly to twist out of his roommate's grasp. "Nowhere – I mean, they're old – had them forever – dad used to hit me – accidents – never meant to – " he babbles, backing against the the open window. "I – Collins, really, I never meant to – "

"I did that once," Collins says, thoroughly humorless. "Cutting, I mean. I was more like you as a teenager than you think, believe me. But I'm giving you zero choices now. You are going to _stop_. Hear me? I don't care how else you relieve frustration – smoke or drink or even shoot up in moderation. But this is not something you can moderate. If you can't control it, you can't _do _it."

Roger shakes his head. "I'm not – "

"Shut up."

Roger blinks as Collins stares at him stonily. "Listen. I am doing you the courtesy of keeping my voice down so nobody inside can hear me. I will speak up if I need to. I will find your parents and bring you back to them if I have to."

"You can't," Roger whispers nearly silently, but Collins plows through that excuse as well.

"I don't care what you think I can and can't do. I will do whatever I need to. What were you using, knife or razor? Knife. Well, I will replace all the cutlery in the loft with spoons if I need to. You can't cut with a spoon, Roger, believe me. And I will take out all the razors and replace them with waxing shit. Do you know you can kill yourself like this? You could end up _dead_. Everyone dies, but do you want yours to be a result of stupidity at the age of sixteen?"

Roger shakes his head. "No, but – "

"No buts."

Roger exhales shudderingly again, letting the smoke form an arch in the air. "Please believe me, Collins, I didn't do that. It was – someone else. Something else. It's not cutting. Please – I never – "

Collins sighs. "I thought I could trust you," he tells the boy disappointedly. He climbs back inside and warns, "I'm going to check you regularly. If I see any new scars – you're in trouble. Got that, kid?" he asks coldly, and leaves Roger outside, puffing desperately on his cigarette as salty teardrops wash away the smoke clouds.

"Back to high school," Roger tells himself, and it is several moments of recollections before he realizes that he didn't _say _that, he sung it, and more words flow easily once he's realized that fact. "Back to friendlessness, monarchies and no control." And he'd used his notebook to fuel a fire four months ago…

Roger climbs down the fire escape until he's on the sidewalk, arms huddled around his body to protect himself from the chilly March air. He approaches his dealer, trying to look casual with his brown-blonde curls falling into his eyes. _I can stop anytime I want to_…

As both men extend their hands, they slide their palms against each other's, never really touching skin. Roger watches a flash of his dollar bill slide into The Man's pocket as he himself pockets the white powder and needle. Then he ducks into the alleyway he'd found Collins in… Collins had found him in…

From inside the alleyway, he is somehow warmer. Just a bit. He watches all sorts of people pass by: a too-skinny, awkward-looking girl who is somehow beautiful; a young woman in a suit and tie with her hair contradictingly wild; a leather-clad girl downing shot after shot after shot; a quiet-looking young man tapping drumsticks against a pickle tub; a confident-looking girl in her early twenties who knows she's sexy. She is the one who catches sight of Roger in the alleyway.

"You okay?" she asks him gently.

Roger shrugs. "Don't know," he grunts. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"You have a gorgeous smile," she informs him, smiling coyly. "I was just about to go into a club. You wanna come with me?"

Roger shakes his head. "Not into large groups of people," he replies, even though it's a lie. His troubles with clubs are the bands; tattooed, pierced, and scarecely talented, the bands performing in clubs remind Roger of his old heroes. When he sits in alleyways strumming on an imaginary guitar, he feels like himself, but watching real-time guitarists makes him wonder if there is any truth in music at all. Surely there must be for some, but others… the ones that find performances to be a _high_… is there anything there at all?

She sighs. "Okay." She turns away and leaves Roger huddled, alone.


	4. IV

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**by alwaysflying**

**Author's Notes: Okay, well, my birthday's on Tuesday. So I would like to extend a challenge to my readers: guess how old I'm turning. I will not tell you the age _unless you are correct_, but I really want to know what people think. And if you're wrong, I'll at least tell you if my age is within fifteen years of your guess. **

**Disclaimer: No, I _still _don't own RENT. Isn't that funny? **

When Roger returns to the loft (shoulder sore from twenty minutes of banging against the building's front door), he immediately catches sight of Collins, Benny, and Mark dining casually around the table. "Oh, hey, Roger," Collins calls lightly, looking up from his soup. "Come join us. It's great." Collins coldly meets the teenager's constricted pupils and then adds, "That is, if you can look up from your smack long enough."

"That was cold," Mark laughs, slapping Collins playfully on the shoulder.

And again, Roger is struck by a feeling of déjà vu. He remembers standing before the very same calculating ice-blue eyes and feeling just as ignored, abandoned, and misplaced. Just as he did in high school, Roger shuffles away, wishing (not for the first time since Mark's arrival) that he had his own room, a door to slam or at least _close_, to prove his point. As he curls up on the couch and the tempting aroma ghosts over Roger's nostrils (and, he believes, the scars on his arms as well), Roger lets his eyelids droop shut. Maybe Mark will be gone in the morning, he tells himself, and that alone is enough to sing him to sleep with his own written lullaby.

Collins, Benny, and Mark remain at the table, indifferent to Roger's unconsciousness. "So, Mark," Collins states casually, "how did you and Roger know each other, back in high school?"

Mark shrugs. "I don't know, to be honest," he replies abashedly. "I didn't know him too well. There were a lot of kids like him, so I probably don't even remember him personally more than I remember a group of kids."

"And what were they like?" the philosopher presses.

The blonde sighs. "Well, I have to admit that Roger was a special case. If he is who I think he is, he never had any friends. He wore eyeliner and dark clothes, and never socialized or even tried to. He wanted to be a rock star, but I think he knew as well as the rest of us did that it was never gonna happen." After a pause, Mark adds, "And he was gay. I remember that. He was definitely gay."

Collins nods. To break the silence, Benny begins gathering plates and cutlery, and Mark and Collins follow suit. As they proceed to wash and dry the dishes, Collins turns to Mark again. "Did you ever have a conversation with him?"

Mark shakes his head. "Not that I can remember," he tells Collins. "I don't think so. I was always with my friends, you know? It's high school. People are exclusive."

"And you realize that now," Collins states. "Well, that's good. In high school, I was more of a rebel. Always breaking rules. No, not breaking them so much as challenging them. My teacher said for us not to call each other names, so I simply refrained from calling anyone _anything_ – aloud, that is. And so on."

Benny chuckles. "Ever the whiz kid, our Collins," he says, affectionately slapping his loftmate on the back. "Betcha he was tapping away on computers even when he was in school."

Collins shakes his head. "Nope," he says regretfully. "My school was poor, and besides, computers are just now becoming major. Back then they were these shitty little machines."

Mark coughs. "They still are, in my opinion," he ventures. "My motto's always been, why put into a machine what you can do by yourself?"

Benny's head snaps up. "Like your films, for instance?" he asks sharply. Mark and Collins stare at Benny, startled by his tone of voice.

"Um, yeah," Mark mumbles. The three men lapse into silence, broken only by the clatter of three empty coffee mugs being placed on the table, then a rushing noise as coffee is poured into each mug respectively.

It is only after twelve minutes that Collins becomes desperate for conversation. Unbridled, he offers the first comment that comes to mind: "You know Roger cuts himself?"

Benny chokes on his coffee. Mark merely looks at Collins curiously. "Does he?" he asks. "I never knew… he always seemed the stereotype, but then again, he always seemed the type of person who doesn't fit into stereotypes."

When Benny manages to gulp down the scorching liquid, he demands, "How do you know? Are you sure? Why? What does he use? When did you find out? Why are you telling us this now?" After managing to breathe properly, he clears his throat. "Ahem."

Collins bursts into laughter, something that he's found himself doing less and less since Mark moved in (that same morning). It is not a comforting thought. Finally, he responds, "I know because I saw the scars. I'm pretty sure, yes. I don't know why – well, I do, but I can't tell you. He uses a knife. I found out earlier, and I'm telling you because I think you need to know. And, even though you didn't ask this – I suspect he's been doing it for a long time."

Benny inhales sharply. "Collins – can we talk in private?" He looks hopelessly at Mark. "I'm sorry, I just – you know. Family issues. I mean, we're not related, but – we are, in a way. Okay?"

Mark shrugs. "Sure."

And so Benny and Collins enter their shared room and close the door, letting talk of high school and homosexuality and unreturned crushes flow through the crack beneath and to the side of the door. Mark sits on the couch and watches Roger's chest heave up and down as he bears the weight of his clearly troubled sleep.

It is at that moment that Mark first begins to _think_. He first thinks of himself as a teenager: gangly and blonde, he had elected to wear contacts to spare himself the grief a glasses-wearing boy would undoubtedly receive. Then he pictures his high school friends, the best and brightest (and most popular, of course): the cheerleaders, the jocks, and those, like Mark, with enough charisma and personality to rise to the social upper brances even lacking athletic ability. Then Mark pictures the boy that Roger was then. Roger had wild hair of a dark blonde shade, curling and spiking and jutting out at odd angles – all naturally. His piercing green eyes were barely visible beyond a cloud of dark eyeliner obscuring half his face, and his body was concealed by baggy, oversized black clothing. Mark remembers this boy vividly in terms of appearance but cannot for the life of him recall _who _Roger was then, apart from the aspiring musician that existed solely for Mark and his friends to mock.

As Mark watches Roger sleep, he wonders if the boy always bears quite so distressed an expression. The answer, Mark concludes, is yes: after years of humiliation and being naturally loathed by his fellow students ("peers," they were called by guidance counselors), it would be impossible not to be uneasy and unhappy. Mark wonders exactly how much of that abuse he himself is to blame for, but forbids himself to answer that inner question, for fear of what the answer may be. The cogs in his brain begin working, against Mark's will, to determine the solution, but he decisively ignores his conclusion.

Roger sleeps like a log, and that is part of what makes it so easy for Mark to gently expose the teenager's arm. He breathes in the scars littering the pale skin and shakes his head firmly. Those aren't cutting scars. Mark has never seen cutting scars, but he knows enough about people to tell that those _aren't _the marks of someone who seriously wants to hurt himself, particularly someone as determined and unhappy as Roger is (a bad combination, in this case). Maybe the marks are simply indentures from Roger's nails as he clawed at his skin, trying to wake up from a nightmare; maybe they are scrapes accumulated due to the highly shabby, unpolished nature of the loft – nails and bricks stick out from the walls, and Roger often walks around the loft in a trance, not noting where the harmful objects are nor whether or not he is in close proximity to them.

Mark believes that the scars may come from something else entirely: masochism, perhaps, or scrawled messages (written by his nails) reminding Roger to do so-and-so. Something between accidents and self-mutilation – and in truth, that _is _what Roger Davis is. He was born half an accident (accidental on his father's part, deliberate on the part of his mother) and half a… simply put, a time bomb sprung upon his father in the weeks after Roger's birth. But Mark does not know these things, and will probably never know them. All he knows now is that Roger isn't hurting himself and likely never would; he cherishes himself too much to do that. Roger more than nearly anyone knows the fragility of life, and after watching his mother steadily kill herself (again, something Mark never witnessed), Roger is all-too aware of how easy a lifetime can be cut short.

When Roger awakens, he blinks several times before growing accustomed to the sky-colored stare meeting his own eyes. Roger shakes the nightmare out of his mind and rasps, "Why are you watching me sleep?" It seems very stalkeresque, very typically _Roger_, rather than typical of the admittedly-curious, admittedly-inquisitive, but altogether praiseworthy and beyond human – Mark Cohen.

"I don't know," Mark replies. It is a half-truth. He began watching Roger sleep aimlessly, hoping to drift off a bit himself, and continued because he was lost in thought and in Roger's steady, slow motions of a one-time sleepwalker. Roger, Mark notes, sleeps with the restriction and constriction of a boy that is used to having a too-small space to sleep in. Then again, Roger is such a dreamer that in daylight, he represents a boy with such wild and unmanagable dreams that he loses himself in them, and for that, logic says, one needs space. But space is one thing Roger has never had, and has never taken for granted – just as one would never grow used to a dollar that one never had.

Roger sits up and leans against one of Benny's stacks of paperwork, for some reason shoved against the couch cushion in place of a pillow. But it'll do. Roger has never even taken _pillows _for granted, far too concerned with being able to sleep at all, comfortably or not.

"Do you sing?" Roger asks the filmmaker. "I mean, can you?"

Mark nods reluctantly. "I was in a choir as a kid," he admits. "You?"

The moment Mark's lips close around one another, he realizes that he asked an absurd question. But before he can take it back, Roger is shaking his head sadly, hair flopping into his eyes. "I thought I did," Roger says. "I guess not, though. You ever had one of those experiences? Where you devoted your _life _to something, and then – it was just – gone? Gone? And you felt so empty and such a craving, and you were trying to hold yourself back because you were scared of what your body might do once it realized that it would never be satisfying that craving again?"

Mark nods immediately. _Yes, I know that feeling_. And he tells Roger as much. Roger is surprised, but does not press the question; he always leaves questions hanging in the air for others to answer in cases where they might be seen as too personal. And curiosity, the overwhelming desire to talk about oneself, always conquers all. Here it is no exception: Mark begins to speak, against his own whims and against Roger's beliefs.

"I mean," Mark continues, "when I left college, I kept wanting it back. I thought to myself, hey, I can always go back if I really, really want to. But the thing is, by the time I overcame my nostalgia, I" –

"You realized you couldn't go back anymore anyway," Roger finishes for him.

"Exactly."

"The sock drawer concept," the scarcely-educated Roger continues, but he does not expand on it. He just watches Mark's eyes dart across the room, schadenfreudically enjoying his companion's discomfort. After a few long moments, Roger silently drops his head to the couch again and closes his eyes – but Mark swiftly cuts him off.

"Don't go back to sleep," Mark pleads. "I need someone to talk to."

"Me?" Roger asks, baffled. "You want to talk to _me_?" It is a new and foreign concept to him.

"Sure," says Mark. "Who else? Let's go take a walk." As he stands up and peers out the window, Mark casually adds, "It's beginning to snow."


	5. V

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**by alwaysflying**

**Author's Notes: I see more potential for this story itself under an M rating. I see more potential for this story's popularity under a T rating. Thoughts?**

**Disclaimer: No, I _still _don't own RENT. Isn't that funny? **

Mark and Roger duck out of the loft through the main stairs rather than the fire escape, because, though Roger typically loathes the stuffy stairwell, he doesn't particularly enjoy getting covered with snow – and he's only taking this walk to make Mark happy.

When the pair reaches the ground outside, Roger vividly recalls harsh winters in Scarsdale, immediately counteracted the moment somebody stepped inside a heated building. Fortunately, _heated _happened to be a word that could describe every building in the entire city. Now, he feels the rush of winter again on his too-pale cheeks, and he takes a step back. Mark smiles loosely at Roger.

"Remembering winters back home?" he asks his now-loftmate.

Startled, Roger's eyes widen. "Yeah. You too?"

Mark nods. "Hard not to." He peers on either side of the sidewalk before decidedly choosing the left path, using his "natural leader" instinct, and Roger follows him. If Mark had asked his opinion, Roger would tell Mark of all the different features of either path: the left, for example, would lead to streets increasing in their bohemia, until at last they would settle into the West Village, land of homosexual pride and one-night stands. The right, on the other hand, while not nearly as decorative, is a calm and quiet street that passes The Man and his stash, the alleyway where Collins had found Roger, and, deep into the path, an abandoned lot (that in exactly four years will grow to become a club affectionately named after its owner's cat, Scratch).

So Mark chooses left.

Together, the two blondes lapse into silence, occasionally brushing snow out of their own hair – but never each other's. Finally, the two come to a stop at Roger's number-one most-frequented park, home to many fences that were made for (illegal) jumping, and trees that were made for (illegal) climbing. When both men collapse against a park bench, Roger hugs his knees to his chest and ignores the beeping of his watch, hoping Mark will do so as well. He isn't so lucky.

"Your watch. It's beeping," Mark tells Roger.

Roger nods. "I know."

"Why?"

"AZT," he answers shortly. As Mark looks on in bewilderment, Roger plunges a hand into his pocket and emerges with two orange pills. He dry-swallows them in an instant, resurfaces, and looks back at Mark.

Mark is baffled. "AIDS? But you're only…"

"Sixteen," Roger says quickly. "And yeah, I know."

Mark still doesn't understand. "How'd you get it?" he asks, awestruck.

"Tainted needle."

Roger nearly laughs. Controlling himself, he explains to Mark, "AIDS isn't this thing you can only get from gay sex. It's a disease. You know, like a cold? You can get it from a ton of different things. And it's always an accident. You know. You don't _want _it. It's random. It's not like the germs forgive you for only doing something once. Either it springs from addiction, or pure luck. You might sit on a tainted needle in a movie theater. Or you shot up with your girlfriend. Or had sex with a hooker. Either that or it's from real addiction – where you try to moderate yourself, but… you can't."

Mark shakes his head. "I don't know that feeling," he tells Roger indifferently, and Roger feels a flash of anger burst through his mind.

_Sheltered_, his brain screams. He suddenly loathes Mark. After a few deep breaths, the hatred nearly subsides, but not enough so that Roger can comfortably return to his fantasies of a shirtless Mark.

"Mark?"

Roger's nails are digging into his knees, as if begging himself (silently) not to chicken out on what he is about to say. Mark glances at the teenager inquisitively, and Roger squeezes his eyes shut. Green flickers to pale, tired eyelids, and Roger blurts out, "Are you gay?"

"What?!" Mark squawks. Whatever he was expecting, that isn't it.

Roger blushes. "No, I don't mean – I just was wondering – well – I mean – are you?" His cheeks are brightening from pale to a dark red, probably due to a combination of cold and embarrassment. "I'm sorry. Is that too personal? I'm sorry." Now he is babbling, head bent down to stare at his scuffed sneakers and drooping socks whose elastic collapsed into the toes.

Mark does not feel particularly forgiving. "No," he tells Roger curtly. "Not at all." With that, he brushes a pile of snow off of his lap and stands –

slips –

and lands, face-down, in an oval-shaped ocean of ice.

Roger hesitates. He does not wish to seem particularly personal. He tells himself that he could care less about Mark, that he does not need to fawn over him like this and treat him so nicely. Roger tells himself this, but he can't make himself believe it, can't make his eyes widen in realization or make time freeze as he realizes the truth in his thoughts. All he knows is that he doesn't want Mark to be hurt. So Roger kneels down beside the puddle and holds out a hand to the other man.

"Come on," he offers. "I'll help you up."

As if that weren't obvious. His bitten nails and scratched arms now exposed to Mark, Roger feels oddly insecure about his body in the face of this _perfect _person, so without baby fat or teenage acne or any of the unredeeming qualities that Roger has. He's sixteen, and Mark is a full adult, so why should this be any different?

Faltering, Mark glances at the hand extended to him. It is nothing special – a bump lives on Roger's fourth finger, evidence of the _x _amount of years he spent in high school, ballpoint pen in hand. Mark finds himself staring at the lump until Roger's hand trembles, prepared to retract back into his pocket.

"Okay," Mark says at last, and allows Roger to hoist him up. It is odd, that Roger can do this – the sixteen-year-old is so absurdly skinny, a victim of hunger and the disinclination to eat, whereas Mark comes straight from Brown's cafeterias, Scarsdale High's cafeteria, and his mother's home-cooked Jewish meals. Yet somehow, scrawny Roger is able to bring Mark to his feet. "Thanks," he mutters, and settles himself back on the bench. Talk of homosexuality is unfamiliar and slightly disturbing to him, but if that's what Roger wants, he'll deal with it. "Yeah. So no, I'm not gay. Though I know _you _are."

Somehow Mark manages the word _gay _sound like a curse, like a stone pelting Roger against the gymnasium wall as insults hurl themselves at him: _fag_, _queer_, _cocksucker_. Roger cringes at the memory – he'd always been sensitive, even as a "hardcore" aspiring musician, back in high school. Every word then appeared to bounce off his outer shell, but in truth the stones lodged within his very essence and to this day refuse to disappear.

"Yeah," says Roger. "I am. So? What's it to you who I fuck?"

Mark wants to say, truthfully, that he has no problem with who Roger may choose to _fuck_, as he so eloquently put it, but instead decides that witty remarks might be better conversation starters (and provocation for Roger to shut up). Mark longs for the ability to get an outspoken person such as Roger to be taken aback, speechless, startled. He aims for that high goal in his next sentence. "Well, I'd just rather not hear you screaming my name while you masturbate," Mark sneers.

Roger's eyes widen. "I _do_?" he blurts out, and then slaps a hand over his mouth. Paying enough attention to the ground so that he doesn't slip over the ice, Roger gets to his feet and swiftly makes an exit, ducking into alleyways and abandoned avenues and the like, hoping Mark won't follow.

In the meantime, the blue-eyed Brown dropout watches Roger retreat. "So he likes me," Mark says to himself calmly. That's fine. He's been adored before. Somehow, however, he doubts that this will be as simple as Maureen Johnson's crush on him back in middle school. Sharing a loft, sleeping quarters even, with a homosexual with feelings for Mark might be a mite uncomfortable, and so Mark does the thing that most bohemians are conditioned not to do.

So Mark is decidedly _not _a bohemian, which he demonstrates as he deposits four quarters into the payphone and dials his mother's familiar home phone number. Haunting thoughts remind Mark that while Roger may be sixteen, the youngest of the loftmates, he (Roger) is certainly the most mature and independent – at twenty years old, Mark is still calling home. Roger, Mark is sure, does not remember his mother's phone number, and likes it that way.

Mark's thoughts only slip out of his mind as the cheerful voice of his mother echoes over the phone, and Mark begins pouring out his heart and soul to the only woman he loves and trusts – except, perhaps, for Cindy. As his soul trickles through the phone line into his mother's living room, a small droplet ends up on the floor at Mark's feet, and Roger, several avenues away by now, picks up on a whiff of it.


	6. VI

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**by alwaysflying**

**Disclaimer: No, I _still _don't own RENT. Isn't that funny? **

Mark has found, over the past five years, that talking things over with his three favorite women in the world often make his troubles go away. These women – his mother Sarah, his sister Cindy, and his girlfriend Maureen – are experienced in the areas of coaxing, cuddling, and comforting. They each hold important roles in Mark's life: his mother, his guardian and caretaker; Cindy, the one who makes him _think_; Maureen, the one who can identify Mark's needs and act accordingly (and remind him to make up for it later).

Mark misses Cindy fiercely. He knows she would loathe the city, just as his mother would – it's far too loud and intense for Cindy and Momma. Cities, to the Cohen women, are wonderful in _theory_, or to visit when seeing a show or meeting a friend, but when it comes to staying for a night or more, they would simply prefer to have nothing to do with such a thing. And yet, even knowing this, Mark desperately wants Cindy's presence.

Or if not Cindy's…

Mark's fingers jet across the keypad of the pay phone. Moments later, he is twirling the cord around his finger. "C'mon, pick up," he mumbles. And his wish is granted. Mere seconds thereafter, a chirpy female voice echoes in Mark's ear.

"Hell-o?"

Mark smiles in spite of his irritation (directed, of course, toward Roger). "Hey, baby," he greets his girlfriend. "What's up, love?"

"Oooh, Marky!" Maureen squeals. "I was hoping you'd call! Are you in the city? Do you want me to come visit? Is there room where you're staying? How's Benny? Is he still an asshole? Did you know" –

Mark chuckles. "Come on, Reen, one at a time," he tells his girlfriend. "But: yes, I am in the city, and yes, I would love for you to visit. There's… _some_ room here, and Benny is _not _an asshole, and you know it." He takes a deep breath. "Oh, and I found you a guy you'd _love_."

"Yeah?" Maureen asks, puzzled. _But we were doing so well together… _

"No, I mean, like, as a friend," Mark adds hurriedly. Smirking, he continues, "His name's Roger. Davis. He's a musician."

"Oh… Mark, he went to our school." Her voice is careful, bearing the unsurity of a jury member having second thoughts. "Or someone with the same name."

Mark smiles to himself. "No, it's the same one, unfortunately," he tells Maureen, and sighs deeply. "He appears to like me. In the sense that he would like me in his bed."

Maureen chortles. "Oh, as if anyone _doesn't_, Marky-love. You're just so adorable." After a moment's pause, Maureen adds, "Shouldn't he still be in school? I mean, I thought he was four years younger than us."

"He's sixteen," Mark agrees. "But he's not in school, for whatever reason. Whatever, Maureen – this isn't what I called to talk to you about." Though admittedly it is hard to stay off the topic of the teenager whose eyes appear to be burned into his mind. "I was wondering if you could please, please come here. Just for a little while. _Please_."

Maureen is startled. "Sure, love, I'd like that," she says quickly. "But why? I mean, I miss you, baby, but it sounds like this is more than just that."

"It is," Mark tells her firmly. "But I don't want to talk about it now. I just – I need someone I can talk to you, and not just on the phone. Plus, I'm sick of sharing the couch with a gay guy who I _know _likes me." He continues, "Maureen, could you just come as fast as you can? I'll pick you up wherever you want."

Maureen considers. "Sure," she says. "Sure. Yeah. I'll see if Cindy can drive me, how about that? Then you can see her when we get there, and I bet you'd love that."

"God, Maureen," Mark says warmly. "You always know how to make me feel so much better."

Maureen giggles. "That's my job, baby. Just don't forget to pay up."

Mark snorts and makes a tremendously obscene query. Maureen bursts into laughter from the absurdity of it, and after she and Mark catch their breath, the phone call draws to a close. "So I'll see you, like, tomorrow, babe?" Maureen verifies.

"Yeah." Mark suddenly finds himself unable to stop smiling. "'Bye, love."

He hangs up the phone and feels his cheeks redden as Roger makes his presence known. "Adorable," Roger sneers. "Marky wuvs his girlfriend."

Mark glares at him. "Whatever, bitch," he snaps. It is a term he would never _dream _of using towards a female or anyone, in fact, that he so much as remotely respects. To Roger, on the other hand, it seems acceptable, either because he is annoying or because he is a homosexual, or maybe both.

"Don't call me that," Roger snarls.

Mark pauses, mid-step. He has never been in a physical fight before. Nobody had ever seemed worth fighting to him, and nobody had, in fact, ever considered that there might be something so undesirable about Mark Cohen that he deserved to be fought. Roger seems on the verge of starting a brawl right now, however, and Mark vaguely wonders whether his physical person or his pride is more important.

Pride it is, then.

"I'll call you whatever I" –

"Shut up," Roger says, interrupting Mark. "Just shut up."

Mark cringes. _Oh, the melodrama._ The sixteen-year-old has the maturity of his age, that's for sure. He opens his mouth to say just that when Roger's fist is thrust out of nowhere and knocks Mark in the jaw.

"Asshole," Mark mutters, and prepares his fists, feeling rather foolish. After all, the only fighting stance he ever learned was the result of repetitive viewings of self-defence movies in eighth and ninth grade. He stands sideways, both fists clenched and held beside his chest, with his jaw thrust out.

Roger bursts out laughing. Clearly, the oft-bullied teenager knows a thing or two more than Mark about fighting – demonstrated in the fact that, as Mark blushes and attempts to mimic Roger's posture, Roger jerks his foot upward and hits Mark hard in the groin with his foot.

Neither Mark nor Roger says what is on both their minds, which is that Roger would have used his fist instead of his foot had he not been afraid of Mark's reaction. However, it also crosses Roger's mind that if he really cared about Mark's reaction, he wouldn't be beating him up in the middle of the park.

Somehow that thought means more to Roger than anything else. "Sorry," he mumbles, and takes a step away from Mark. He wonders if Mark will hit him. He wonders if he would even object. Then he remembers the word for the subject of his idle curiosity – masochism – and recoils. He isn't a masochist. Although Mark may as well be, for all the time he spends irritating Roger.

Sure enough, Mark tosses a punch at Roger, but it is more friendly than anything. Well, perhaps friendly isn't quite the word – the punch hurt, yes, and Mark's eyes are still blazing and his knuckles white, but Roger does not think that Mark genuinely means to hurt him. After all, he _is _sixteen, mature though he may be at times.

Roger takes several steps towards the park's exit. "Where are you going?" Mark asks loudly.

"Home," Roger replies indifferently.

Mark shrugs. He tries to act as though it does not concern him. "You're going to have a bruise," he tells Roger offhandedly, falling into step beside the boy.

Roger shrugs. "So will you. On your cock."

The blonde wrinkles up his nose. "Could you not be so obscene?" he demands, selectively displacing from his mind the rather disgusting comment he had made to Maureen on the phone earlier.

"Could you not be so green?" Roger retorts.

Mark quickens his pace. He wishes he were still at Brown. He wishes he had never come to the city. He wishes Roger could get kicked out of the loft, because it's not like he does anything to help with the rent anyway.

"Look, I'm sorry for whatever I did to tick you off," Roger says at last, grabbing Mark's shoulder to slow him down. "Do you really hate me?"

Mark cannot stop himself from shaking his head, as much as he would like to. "I don't hate you," he assures Roger, but his voice is cold rather than kind.

Roger, unconvinced, drops his eyes to the ground and continues walking.

"I _don't_," Mark adds, more to himself than to Roger. "I don't."

Roger takes a step forward, into the street, and spots Collins on the other side. He picks up speed, waving to his loftmate, and comes to a stop beside him. Mark follows shortly thereafter, but he is not quite as fast or as interested in reaching Collins –

He swerves off-course and accidentally runs into a young woman. Collins and Roger, distracted by one another, do not notice as Mark kneels down and helps the girl with what she had been carrying. "Sorry," he says sincerely. "I – yeah. Sorry."

The girl shrugs. "No harm done." She jerks her head toward Roger. "You with him? He's _cute_."

Mark laughs. "Don't waste your breath on him, he's gay."

"I know," the girl tells Mark. "I could tell. We talked a little bit, him and me. He's really anti-social for a fag, though." At Mark's nervous fidgeting, the girl smiles. "What? Don't like the word fag? Whatever." She corrects herself, "He's really anti-social for a gay guy. That better?"

Mark shrugs.

"Hey, what do you say you and me go have a drink?" she offers.

The filmmaker chuckles. "It's barely seven," he informs her.

"Never too early," she says with a shrug. As she and Mark aimlessly begin ambling down the street, she adds, "No day but today."


	7. VII

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**by alwaysflying**

**Disclaimer: No, I _still _don't own RENT. Isn't that funny? **

**Author's Notes: And ta-da! Here's this chapter. If it's not as good (or as long) as previous ones, forgive me, please. After all, tomorrow morning will be a _very _special occasion of mine (on which I shall have the opportunity to wear a very special white dress).**

When Mark returns, his hair is swept back and his cheeks, flushed, shine even in the dark loft. "Hey, Benny, Collins," he grunts towards his friends, completely ignoring Roger, who is perhaps in the plainest view of all three. Collins, Roger, and Benny are sitting at the table, sipping some warm beverage and playing what appears to be their infamous favorite card game, B.S.

"Hey, Mark," Collins and Benny chorus, not looking up from their hands. Roger crosses his arms over his chest. With a clear view of Mark, he can see every line of the blonde's face

"Who'd you fuck?" he demands crudely. At this, Benny and Collins do glance upward, and seeing the thoroughly ravished appearance of Mark, Collins whistles. Benny snickers and watches the game, slamming his hand down on Roger's as the musician attempts to sneak a card into the deck. ("Sor-_ry_," Roger sneers.)

Mark does not answer. He does, however, glance over at Benny's cards and murmur tips for strategizing. Scowling, Roger peeks at Collins's cards, who in turn glances at Roger's. "Sucks, man," Roger tells Collins empathetically. Collins frowns.

Roger ignores him.

Equally drunk on untained loathing, Roger and Mark barely recognize their surroundings for a moment. The problem lies in that Roger, in addition to his glare, sports an erection caused by the object of his hatred. Collins, with his Homosexual Radar, somehow manages to detect this, and winks unsubtly at Roger.

"What, is he jerking off under the table or something?" Mark sneers.

Roger kicks him.

What follows is a brawl that is so utterly pathetic and lacking in credible violence that Collins does not even bother to look up from his hand of cards. "Bullshit," he tells Benny dryly as play proceeds, despite the grunts and groans coming from Roger and Mark's display of homoerotic sadomasochisic violence. "You think they're having sex?" Collins adds as Benny, grumbling, picks up the pile of cards from the center.

"Hard to tell," Benny says, craning his neck over to watch as Mark and Roger proceed to give one another bruises, cuts, and other forms of irritation. "I dunno. Roger, you'n Mark having sex yet?"

Roger and Mark pause in their violence for both young men to raise their left hands (one finger in particular) and shoot Benny identically obscene gestures. Immediately afterward, they return to their pummeling, or at least, they continue until Roger somehow manages to position himself over Mark, one arm holding the other man to the ground.

"Um, Roger, I think you've got something in your pocket," Collins tells Roger amusedly, hearing Mark's squeaks and deducing what must obviously be pressing into Mark's thigh.

"Shut the fuck up, Thomas," Roger grumbles, and rolls off Mark, eyes flaming. "I'm going out," he declares, and just as he throws on his coat, a bizarre force throws itself at Roger out of nowhere, and Roger is knocked against the wall as a pair of brusing lips thrust themselves against Roger's mouth.

Collins cackles wickedly; Benny watches in horror; Roger and Mark refuse to release one another until Mark hisses, "Bedroom. Now." With those words, Roger obediently follows Mark into Benny and Collins's bedroom. The lock clicks shut behind them, and the loft's other residents wince as a series of very passionate-sounding grunts become audible through the steel door.

"Strip the sheets tonight," Benny mutters, followed by "Three eights," as he places three cards down in the deck.

Collins smiles pityingly at his loftmate. "I know you're lying," he tells him. "I'd call you on it, but there's no need. Two nines." With that, he places his two remaining cards in the middle of the table and grins. "Sorry, buddy."

"Why are you so good at this game?" Benny demands as he stacks the cards up and places them back in the box. "It isn't fair."

"Ah, Benjamin," Collins sighs. "Were life fair, man would have naught to live for, and naught to which to aspire."

Benny cocks his head. "Is that a famous quote?" he asks.

Collins shakes his head. "Not yet," he tells his friend, and takes a long sip of vodka before placing it back in the fridge. "To the fags in our bedroom," he says, and swishes the liquid around in his mouth before taking a long gulp and swallowing it.

"May they continue their sadomaschoism," Benny adds.

And so they do.


	8. IIX

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**Author's Notes: All right. I know that Mark seems out-of-character sometimes (post-coitus). Believe me, it will be explained. Well, not _explained_, exactly, but it'll become clear that that's just the kind of flip-floppy person Mark is.**

Morning comes too early, and as light begins to shine through the curtainless window, Roger's eyes flicker open and his first thought is that if Mark is woken up by the light, he may well be angry. So, tired and sore as he is, Roger hoists himself up, limps to the window, and throws a towel over it. It isn't enough – he knows that Mark will still be resentful if the sunlight poking in wakes him up – but at least there is effort.

Roger's second thought upon waking up is that he has never been with anyone quite like Mark. (At sixteen, it slips by Roger that he has never quite been with anyone before.) Fierce and passionate and even hurtful at times, Mark had seemed unstoppable, like a powerful force in perpetual motion. Roger's whimpers and cries – alternating in their reason from agony to ecstasy – had only fueled Mark's intensity. And to be perfectly honest, Roger had loved it.

Just as Roger begins to wonder if he ought to wake Mark up with the kind of oral pleasure that Roger himself has not received in his entire life, cerulean eyes flutter open and focus on Roger. "Good morning, Marky," Roger says immediately, and then begins to think that perhaps all Mark had wanted was a one-night stand, and expected to find the bed empty come morning. But no, Mark seems thrilled to have someone beside him, demonstrated in the fact that he leans over and places a kiss on Roger's chapped, bitten lips.

"Morning," he yawns, and his eyes close as he does so – thus missing Roger's awestruck caressing of his own cheek, astonished by Mark's obvious, gentle display of affection. As Mark dons his glasses, Roger hurriedly freshens up as best he can without leaving the bed: he runs his fingers frantically through his hair and blinks, trying to erase the sleepiness from his eyes. When Mark turns to face him, Roger feels that he looks horrible and should probably leave before Mark asks him to.

Mark opens his mouth to say something, and Roger is startled, feeling that Mark has read his thoughts and is about to dismiss him. Bordering on silent hysteria, Roger begins to panic, thrashing through his thoughts and desperately searching for something that will enable Mark to let him stay. Mark, however, notices Roger's panic and gently runs a hand down the teenager's back. "Hey," he says softly. "Shhh. Calm down. It's okay. It's okay."

Roger, confused, cranes his neck up to look into Mark's eyes. "It is?" he asks worriedly. After all these years – in bed with Mark Cohen, with nothing to show for it but a moment's panic and _oh_, the wonderful caresses down his spine that are just so _nice_, and why can't this happen all the time, maybe it would be worth the price of a hooker just to get him or her to do this…

"Yeah, shhh," Mark says, and moves his hand upwards so that he is stroking Roger's hair. "Wow, your hair is soft." Roger beams at the compliment. After all, if Mark finds it favorable, then surely his hair must truly be _all that_. "And gorgeous, too. How come I never noticed how pretty your hair is?"

Roger blushes. "It's not," he insists weakly, but is silenced by Mark's stroking of his cheek.

Firmly, Mark asserts, "If I say your hair is nice, it's nice, Roger." His voice is gentle, but it seems to mask a more stern point, that Mark is in charge. He places a strong hand on Roger's shoulder, holding the boy in place as he runs his hands up and down Roger's body. As though the blonde were made of clay, Mark flexes Roger into a spread-eagled position with barely any effort, and pauses to admire the boy only for a minute before continuing his stroking over the teenager's body.

"Very skinny," is Mark's first observation, and Roger's blush intensifies. "You're going to have to gain some weight." And to Roger, that is that: Mark has made his desire known, and now it is up to Roger to follow it. The same goes for Mark's next few requests: "Cut your hair" and "See if you can do anything about this tattoo; I hate it." Roger has always felt a strong personal attachment to his small frame, long hair and shoulder tattoo, but what Mark says goes, he decides. It is very clear that Roger has never been in any such relationship before, and Mark seems unaware of how to deal with someone so young. Either that or he is simply very, very spoiled. Collins, staring up at the ceiling from his position on the couch, hears every word of Mark and Roger's exchange (and heard every grunt and moan from the previous night's activities) and cannot decide whether or not being spoiled is Mark's fault.

The phrase "The morning after" seems to be scrawled across the single-frame comic strip of Mark and Roger's brief interaction. Of course, it isn't quite as simple and as black-and-white as that: there is dominance and submission thrown into the mix, and also the fact that this has been Roger's deflowering (and secretly, Roger and Collins both suspect that Mark is aware of that). Mornings after aren't supposed to be full of one partner's instructions as to how the other partner should change his appearance; mornings after shouldn't happen in the bed of an entirely different person, unrelated to the sexual exchange _whatsoever_. Mornings after don't contain a naked minor in bed with a boxer-clad college dropout, both male, with semen-splattered sheets and crescent-shaped scarlet indentures on the minor's back.

And yet, Mark and Roger's morning after contains all of these things.

"Roger, could you go get me some tea?" Mark requests calmly, pointedly keeping the command out of his tone. It is obvious, however, to Mark and Roger both, that it is just that – an order – and Roger does not have a choice in the matter if he wishes to have a repeat performance of the previous night.

"Sure, Mark," Roger replies, and gets to his feet. He shuffles through the bedsheets and emerges with a pair of shabby briefs, then steps into them, self-consciously facing away from his partner. "Do you want sugar?" he asks, not wanting to ruin anything for Mark.

"Black is fine, thank you," Mark tells him, and with that he curls back up under the covers, warm and cushiony as Roger throws a robe around himself and steps into the main part of the loft.

"Morning, Collins," Roger calls to his friend, who is sitting on the couch. "Where's Benny?"

Collins shrugs. "Annoyed at not having his bed last night, I can tell you that much," he says. "You guys _are _going to wash the sheets, right?" Then he corrects himself, "I mean, _you _are?"

Roger is not at all surprised by his friend's alteration. While he did not consciously expect Collins to be aware of the dynamics in Roger and Mark's relationship, it is hardly shocking. Collins knows everything, after all, or at least everything Roger knows and could ever dream of knowing. So upon Collins's observation that Roger will most likely end up doing the laundry, Roger nods. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

The blonde shuffles into the kitchen and fumbles with the five or six pots, kettles and pans that they have in total. "Col, how do you make tea?" he asks, a bit embarrassed. Collins gets to his feet and begins instructing Roger as to how tea is made, and Roger listens closely. Somehow he has the feeling that this will not be the last time that he is asked to make Mark tea, and he wants to be acutely aware of exactly how to do it. He also notices, in Collins's careful placement of details in his instructions, that the philosopher probably knows this as well.

"Roger, what's taking so long?" Mark asks, poking his head out of the doorway. Then he sees Collins stationed beside Roger, stirring the tea, guiding the once-musician's hands. "Oh, I see," Mark murmurs to himself. "You didn't know how to make tea? Is that it?" His voice is that of one speaking to a very small child, and Collins wonders if Mark ought to be talking that way when he is, after all, sleeping with the "child" in question.

Roger stares at his feet. He has the feeling that Mark, in everything he says, somehow unintentionally manages to make Roger feel bad or embarrassed. However, Roger continues that thought by suspecting that it is not Mark's fault but his own for being overly sensitive and immature, which is of course not the case. "Sorry, Mark," he whispers, and is horrified when Mark simply closes the door and disappears back under the blankets. Roger looks up at Collins, hoping for some sort of reaction, but only receives his friend's empty stare.

"Something tells me he's not a morning person," Collins says, and that is that. He continues showing Roger how to make the tea, but Roger's heart is not only not in it, but also appears to be stone-cold, at least for the moment. Roger has been so upset only twice before: once, of course, being when Collins first found Roger on the street, in the moments before Collins resolved to take Roger home with him. The other occasion was upon the very first time Roger was beaten in school by fellow students who appeared to have problems with Roger's homosexuality. It was eighth grade, and Roger's thirteenth birthday, and the day he met Mark Cohen.

"_Oh… uh… oh god, ow." Roger tries in vain to block the harsh, heavy blows by raising his arms up to his chest. He struggles to protect himself, but there are too many fists and they are too strong, too fast. _

"_Yeah, take that, faggot. I bet you're getting off on this, aren't you? Aren't you?" _

"_No – stop it, please." His voice is a whimper, a plea, to stop before it is too late._

_Laughter. "Hear that, guys? He thinks we're gonna stop." _

"_I heard." _

_A new voice, now. "Hey – hey, what the hell are you doing?" _

_Six heads swivel around to face Mark Cohen, whose arm is around his girlfriend as he searches through his pockets for car keys. Though his fingers flick through the bottomless pockets, his eyes are on Roger and his assailants. "Come on, guys, get off him. What'd he do?" _

_The boys begin to protest with Mark as Roger, humiliated and in pain beyond pain, realizes that he cannot get to his feet, and begins crawling across the schoolyard towards the parking lot in the hopes that someone will find him and take pity on him. The chances are low, he knows that, but it never hurt him to dream. _

_Roger sticks to that thought until he realizes that the entire beating was a result of dreaming, dreaming for Mark's love and dreaming of being accepted, even as a fag. Since when does he call himself degrading his names within his own thoughts? Since when does he come to realizations? He hums a gentle tune in his mind and continues moving – knee forward, elbow forward, and so on – because he does not know what else there is to do._

Ice-cold his heart may be, as is the rest of his body, but Roger angles his arm in such a way that when he takes the teakettle off the wood-burning stove, his palm touches the tiny fire and his arm is inflamed, if only for a minute, before the charred skin is in such pain that he has to yank his arm back and cradle it against his chest. Whether or not Collins witnesses this is a mystery, but Roger is thankful beyond words that for a moment, all his painful recollections and thoughts were focused on one tiny area. He wonders if it will remain that way for as long as the burn remains on his fingertips, and with that possibility in mind, he brings Mark his tea with a bounce in his step.


	9. IX

**Streetlights and Starlight**

**Author's Notes: Okay, I _know _this chapter is choppy. I apologize. Really. I just have so much going on right now that it may actually be impairing my writing ability. I'll try not to let this happen again.**

"Roger, meet Maureen," Mark rehearses to the bathroom mirror. "Maureen – this is Roger. Roger, meet my girlfriend, Maureen. Maureen, this is Roger, my fucktoy. I wonder if Collins and Benny's bed can hold three people…"

"It can barely hold two," Collins volunteers, sneaking up behind Mark. Mark jumps, and the skin beneath his razorblade tears.

"Thanks a lot, Tom," Mark drawls, patting the injured area with his thumb. And something (possibly similar to madness) suddenly takes hold of Mark, and before he knows what hits him, Mark blurts out, "Look, I'm having a problem, all right? And I need help." That last sentence, brought on by Mark's suspicions that Collins knows everything – which he probably does – and hangs in the air as both of the bathroom's occupants wait for the other to speak. Mark breaks first, of course, because he always does. "I… I have a girlfriend," he says slowly. "Maureen. She's great, really. We get along, the sex is awesome, and… well, you know. It's just great."

Collins stills his ever-tapping foot and gives Mark a prodding look. "Yeah?"

"And the problem is, then there's Roger. The thing with Roger is that I hate him – I _hate _him – and then I don't. Well, I hate him almost all the time, except for last night when he was sucking me off. That's basically it. With Maureen, you know, it's this healthy relationship, but with Roger, we're not equal, you know? I get to be in charge, because he likes me more than I like him. A lot more, obviously. So I get to tell him what to do, and he does it."

"Uh-huh." Collins nods. "So… you're having a problem choosing between them?"

Mark's head bobs up and down.

"You're screwed," Collins says after a long pause. "You're basically trying to figure out if you want to be "normal" – have a straight, no-strings-attached, perfectly "vanilla" relationship, or basically fuck this guy every night, a guy who'd do whatever the hell you told him to do, no question. So of course you like it with Roger obeying your every whim, but what you need to figure out is whether you value that more than your relationship with Maureen. I know it sounds personal, but I can pretty much tell you don't love Roger – that's obvious – so if you love Maureen, there's your answer."

Mark shakes his head. "I don't. I mean, not like that. She's like a sister most of the time."

"Then I advise you prioritize," Collins says, and ruffles Mark's hair before leaving the room.

Mark sighs. Knowing all that he knows, one would think that Collins would be able to offer Mark better advice than that. Or maybe Collins's advice isn't quite as good at eleven-thirty in the morning, when he hasn't had the chance to get high yet. Perhaps Benny will offer a better solution, Mark suspects, and so he seeks out his other loftmate. He finds Benny sitting on his bed, reading a book.

"Hi, Benny," Mark says brightly. "Don't worry about your sheets, Roger's gonna wash them as soon as he gets his ass off the couch." Mark speaks especially loudly so that Roger, all the way over in the living room-slash-kitchen area, hears and responds by bustling into the room.

"Do you – you want me to do that now?" Roger asks tentatively. His hands reach to the sheets hanging off the bed, and Benny shrugs and stands up so as to give his loftmate easier access.

Mark turns to Benny. "Come onto the fire escape for me, I wanna talk to you." He takes his friend by the hand and leads him to said fire escape, leaving Roger to strip off the sheets, eyes downcast and feet shuffling across the floor. He does not watch Mark and Benny as they depart, fully focused on the task at hand.

Upon Mark and Benny's exit, Collins joins Roger in the bedroom and plops himself down on an already-bare corner of the bed. "Hey, Rog," he greets his friend. "What's on your mind?"

Roger simply shakes his head. "I don't know," he admits. "I just know that I like Mark – I always have – and I _loved _last night." After another moment of speculation, Roger adds, "And I – all right, I know this is gonna sound weird, okay? Just… I know he's treating me kind of strangely, and I sort of… I don't mind it. I like it." He takes a deep breath. "Does that make me a freak?"

_God_. There are some things Collins never imagined himself doing. Explaining a dominant-submissive lifestyle to a sixteen-year-old kid from Scarsdale happens to be one of those things. Gay and anarchistic, Collins never once considered fatherhood as a possible path for his future, and here he is, sitting on the bed with a teenager who requires advice on his unbalanced relationship with an adult male. It's not as though Collins thinks that any of these things are wrong or immoral or anything unnatural – it's only that the sheer irony of the situation, the fact that all his favorite unconventional elements of the bohemian lifestyle are now coming to hurt him, simply stings him a bit.

"No, Roger," Collins explains firmly, "it does not make you a freak." He pauses. Exactly how much detail does the kid need? After a moment's thought on Roger's probable future, living with bohemians in an East Village loft, Collins continues. "Well, see, Rog, there are a lot of people like this. We call them submissive, where they like their partners to take more control. You know, they like pleasing their partner." Collins does not mention his brief dip into this lifestyle in adolescence. He figures the fewer mental images Roger has, the better. "Mark is what we'd call dominant, which is basically the opposite of submissive – they like controlling their partner."

"Well, that's Mark," Roger drawls.

"Yeah, exactly." Collins, irked at having been interrupted when it is taking him such an unbelievable amount of willpower to say all this, plows on. "People who are into this kind of thing, there are clubs and bars and stuff for them to go to. One favorite pastime of this submission thing – bondage – is featured in a club right around the corner from here. Called the Catscratch. I'll take you there sometime. Oh, and there's a bar with stage acts, that'd be good. I could get you some videos on this, too…"

Roger, up until this point, believed that Tom Collins was unflusterable, untouchable and poised and collected. Here and now he sees a new side of his friend, who apparantly has some nervous habits after all. While Collins does not fidget, bite his nails, twirl hair around his finger or stutter, he here proves that his one nervous habit is babbling. It's exactly what Roger might have expected. Collins is not a physical person, so it would be strange for him to let out his nerves physically rather than verbally, because Tom Collins is, if anything, a talker.

"Collins, it's okay," Roger says hurriedly. "You don't have to. I was just wondering, you know, if there are other people like that. If it's not just me. It's not just me?"

"No," Collins says, and his voice is very strong. "In fact, there are all kinds of things that are way weirder that tons of people are into. Like bestiality. I mean, really. As if _petting _animals isn't bad enough, now they want to _fuck _them?" He laughs, and suddenly Roger and Collins are back to their little world, no longer in serious-mode, no longer obliged by any means to discuss important things, because most of the time, there are very few (if any) things to discuss in Bohemia-Land.

Roger nods and slips into a cheerful conversation with Collins about some inane thing or another. He of course folds the sheets as he does so, and when he finishes, he and Collins head to the loft's main door so that they can walk to the laundromat. Collins doesn't bother to grab his wallet – he knows that this, probably like many future things, is on Roger. In fact, it is a mystery to Collins how Roger ever managed to acquire money, but decides that if some sort of thievery is involved, he'd rather not know. Ignorance has never once been bliss to the anarchist, but it would upset him to know of a sixteen-year-old stealing now just as he did months prior while living on the streets. He thought Roger was improved or changed somehow by moving into the loft with Collins and Benny, and now Mark, but apparantly not.

The laundromat is, as always, full of people with all sorts of odd stains that couldn't be explained away to a real dry cleaner. That, Roger suspects, is the reason why people prefer to do their own laundry, so semen-splattered sheets and blood-spotted panties don't have to be exposed to anybody. He himself would never allow anyone to see his clothes or sheets, and isn't entirely sure why anyone else would. It's a strange sort of voyeurism, he believes, to want to see someone else's laundry. Unconventional and innocent at the same time.

Coin slots have always irritated Roger and Collins. It always seemed like a very close call to freedom – like a teacher carrying around an answer sheet while students take a test, scanning the aisles to make sure nobody is cheating. So it is a very signature bohemian move when Roger, rather than placing coins into the slot one-by-one, places two quarters in at once, side-by-side. Of course, this prevents the coins from processing, and so the slot is broken. So what is there to do? The machine is already running, and _oh, well_. Anarchy smells sweet even in a laundromat.

The sheets are clean and unstained when Roger empties the machine, and so he swings the laundry in a bag over his shoulder and begins walking with Collins back to the loft. Dull conversation ensues, of course; Roger disdainfully discusses the horrible music that had been playing in the laundromat, while Collins reminisces of the look on the laundromat's manager's face upon his discovery that the slot was jammed. Both bohemian boys are delightedly caught up in their own murmuring, and so they completely miss the glance offered to them of Mark and Benny standing on the fire escape. Had Roger seen, he might have wondered what they were discussing, but he does not see, and so it is with blissful unawareness that he ascends the stairs leading to the loft, and in it, the comfortable couch on which he would love to take a nap.

But by the time Roger and Collins slide the door open and collapse against said couch, Mark and Benny are already back inside. Both look exhausted and tense, yet cards are laid out on the table, and two chairs are left open for Roger and Collins. Roger waves a hand in _thanks but no thanks_, but Collins accepts the offer, hopping onto the stool reserved for him and asking gruffly, "What game?"

Mark answers, and Collins nods curtly before scanning his cards. He doesn't get much farther than that, however, before the phone rings. Mark gets to his feet, but Benny shoves him down. "We screen," he, Roger, and Collins explain in unison, and before long, a shrill female voice makes its way over the answering machine. Collins and Benny turn aggravated looks to Roger, suspecting that the speaker is Mrs. Davis, having found out the loft's number at last – but no. Mark walks to the answering machine and listens as the voice of Maureen Johnson bounces off the walls.

"Hi, Mark," Maureen chirps, "it's me, baby. I just wanted to say me and Cindy got to the city, and we're gonna meet you at this really cute little café we found – what's it called, Cindy? Oh, it's called – Memba. Yeah. What street is this, Cin – Third street, she says." With that, Mark grabs the phone and puts it to his ear.

"Hey, Maureen," he says, sounding apologetic, perhaps, for not answering the phone faster. "What's up? Oh – third street? Third and what? Okay, third and first. Yeah. You sure?" He pauses. "Yeah, okay. Can I bring the other guys, if they wanna come? Great. Okay. See you in twenty minutes. Bye."

Mark turns to Roger, Collins, and Benny. "Anyone up for meeting my sister and my girlfriend?"


	10. X

**Streetlights and Starlight**

Roger hesitantly falls into step behind Mark and to his left, cautious. He doesn't want to be _too _close to his Mark – and since when did he become _his _Mark? – especially now, knowing that he has a girlfriend. Roger is sure that he knew that before, in some vague corner of his mind. He doesn't know if he knew it because of intuition or because he was told – everything is hazy now, everything before the point when Mark had first smashed his lips against Roger's and demanded entrance into the other boy's mouth.

Collins strides beside Roger and tosses an arm around the teenager's shoulders. "Hey, Roger," he says cheerfully. "Lord Cohen treating you okay?" Then he adds, more quietly and dramatically, "I know you're mad he has a girlfriend, so what, you going to break up with him or something?"

Roger tilts his head to the side. "No," he says earnestly. "Why would I do that?" His voice has a trace of what may be resentment, but Collins neither knows nor dares to make an assumption. "I mean, he has a right to date whoever he wants. It's not like – not like he's serious about me or anything."

Roger speeds up his pace, making it clear the he does not wish to speak to Collins. Staring at the ground, he in fact refuses to so much as watch where he is going. He merely follows the loafers preceeding him in the walk, the shoes that belong to Mark and which are being metaphorically kissed by Roger himself. It is because of his downcast gaze that Roger walks directly into an unfamiliar figure. Collins makes a pained noise as Roger stumbles on a girl's slim figure and is nearly knocked over. Thankfully, however, neither Roger nor the new person actually falls over, though it is a close call.

"Yeah, um, Roger, this is my sister, Cindy," Mark explains. Roger has never heard the young man sound quite so uncertain before. Because Roger is positive that this is in fact the Cindy Cohen he has loathed for several years, and is positive that _Mark _is positive that this is indeed his sister, Roger suspects that Mark's uncertainty is based on an unwillingness to make these introductions. "You guys remember each other," Mark adds.

"Yeah," Cindy says, and robotically shakes the hand of her ex-boyfriend. "Roger. The – the guy I dated once."

Roger nods. "Nice to see you again, Cindy," he says, and he says it because he knows it is what Mark wants him to say. That is enough to get Roger to do just about anything, he realizes, and what comes as a surprise is the fact that it _doesn't _come as a surprise.

"This is Maureen," Mark adds, gesturing to the auburn-haired beauty beside him. He emphasizes the words "_my girlfriend_" and shoots Roger a look that is so clearly an attempt at being furtive, it is almost comical. Roger manages not to crack a smile – knowing that Mark wouldn't like that.

"Nice to meet you, Maureen," Roger says, and shakes the hand of the girl before him. "Or have we already met?"

Maureen delicately rolls her shoulders back. Somehow she prevents the gesture from being what it is – a display of uncertainty – and instead makes it seem to be, just like so many of her dance moves, a choreographed extension of her own personality. "We might have exchanged a few words in school," Maureen offers. "Or not. I'm not sure, I went to school high so often that we could've been best friends and I'd never remember. The only person I seem to remember is Marky."

Had anyone but Maureen said that, it would have been putting one's foot in one's mouth, but here it seems to be perfectly normal for the drama queen. She turns to Benny and smiles. "I know _you_," she says, and she sounds absolutely positive. "Well, of course I do." A smile on her face, Maureen throws an arm around Benny and uses the other hand to emphasize her words as she speaks. "How's life been treating you, Ben-o?"

Benny shrugs. "Fine," he says, and he demonstrates his complete ignorance to Maureen's _Maureen_liness, because everyone who knows Maureen knows that she has _never _been content with a simple "Fine".

"_Fine_?" Maureen chokes. She looks to Mark. "Mark, what does _fine _mean?"

As though reciting a speech he has learned from memory, Mark sing-songs, "_Fine _is the shit you get when you don't pay the rent."

It's a bad joke, and Roger barely cracks a smile, but he dogmatically laughs, because Mark said it and Mark likes for his jokes to be appreciated. Roger is rewarded for his efforts with a charming smile from Mark and – and for this Roger has the utmost gratitude – Mark's hand in his own. He beams, with Collins looking on in what may or may not be utter revulsion.

Collins's thoughts: _Doms and subs are all very well and good, but this is just minor abuse_. It isn't that Collins has anything specifically for or against minors – in fact, he thinks they ought to be just as capable of decision-making as adults are – but Roger in particular is unnaturally infantile, and if Mark can't see that…

Collins shakes his head to clear it. "Shall we go inside?" he asks his companions, hoping for a resounding yes.

Cindy, who obviously isn't as good at identifying homosexuals as she thinks she is, smiles charismatically at Collins and extends her arm for him to take. "Sounds lovely," she says, and Collins vaguely remembers being told that Cindy was getting married, but that doesn't seem to mean anything to her. Humoring her, Collins links his arm in hers and enters the restaurant. Roger, who sees the irony in this just as Collins does, catches his friend's eye and rolls his own green orbs.

Roger holds the door for Mark and Maureen following Collins and Cindy's entrance. Roger himself enters only after an unknown random stranger makes his way inside as well. By then, the four bohemians are already at a table and seated, with a chair squeezed up against the wall reserved for Roger. It is stationed on an angle, awkwardly between Maureen (with Mark beside her) and Cindy, who is next to Collins and across from Mark and wearing a very forced smile.

"So," Mark says unnaturally loudly, "how was the drive over here?"

Cindy and Maureen look at each other and stifle giggles. Roger immediately resolves to loathe both of these individuals permanently and incessantly, or at least until one or both of them drops off the face of the earth (an event that Roger, one should note, would not be terribly traumatized to hear about).

"Oh," Maureen says in a high-pitched voice that reminds Roger of his own when he is hiding something. "The drive was, was pretty good. Cindy's not the best driver, but we managed." She slides an arm around Mark's shoulder.

Cindy pipes up, "The city's really _weird_." She looks to Collins and flutters her eyelashes in an attempt at seduction. "Maybe someone could show me around."

"Yeah," Collins replies, "that's a great idea." He then turns to Roger, who gives him the tiniest, barely perceptible nod. Collins then adds, eyes twinkling evilly, "Maybe me and my boyfriend could give you a tour of the neighborhood."

Collins does not have a boyfriend. However, he _is _homosexual, and he figures that it's close enough, if only to get Cindy off his back. It works, he discovers, and the blond girl blinks at him in horror.

"Your – your what?" she stammers, trying to maintain a perfectly composed pretense.

Roger by now is shaking with laughter, and almost erupts into hysterical guffaws as Collins plows on, "My _boyfriend_. The guy I'm dating. Oh – didn't you know I'm gay?"

Cindy mutely shakes her head, and Roger is so amused by this exchange that he finds it necessary to bite down on his hand in order to keep himself from laughing. He is tremendously grateful that Mark seems to be blissfully unaware of the entire thing, because truthfully, Roger doubts that he would be able to completely hide his amusement even if he desired to, which he actually doesn't.

However, that bliss fades, and Mark turns an irritated eye on Roger. "Roger, enough," he says sternly, and Roger slowly releases his hand from his mouth and folds his hands on his lap, immediately silent and composed. Collins shakes his head in disappointment.

"You were so close," Collins mutters to himself, unaware that he is even saying it aloud.

Cindy spins around to face him. "What was that?" she chirps, half-expecting to hear "April Fools!" or something to that effect. She is sorely mistaken, and maybe even she anticipates that in the moments prior to Collins's slow shaking of his head, denying that he said anything of importance.

"Nothing," he tells Cindy firmly. "Nothing."


	11. XI

**Streetlights and Starlight**

Roger, it seems, does not enjoy the presence of Cindy and Maureen. For one, he is more than a bit upset at having been forcibly removed from the bedroom that _used _to be Collins and Benny's but now is apparantly Mark and Maureen's. In fact, at the minute, Maureen is not even in the room in question – Cindy and Mark currently reside within that room as they discuss who-knows-what. (In considering the fact that Maureen and Mark will be occupying the bed tonight in contrast to the fact that it is, in fact, Collins and Benny's bed, Roger amusedly acknowledges the irony in those two greatly varying relationships' occupancy of the same mattress-structure.)

Another way Collins can tell that Roger doesn't appreciate the girls' being here is his sulking and flat-out refusal to do anything but swig bottle after bottle of cheap, tasteless beer. (Then again, most of the bohemians' beer is cheap and tasteless. The vodka is pretty good, though.)

As it is, Maureen and Benny and Collins get along swimmingly. In their card game, they slap down cards against the table, challenging one another with their eyes as kings beat out jacks and Maureen protests that aces are high when she insisted mere minutes prior that they ought to be ranked as low. Roger sits on the floor, legs folded into a pretzel, head down as he counts the flaws in the floor, the boards of which seem as though they were shoved together sloppily and had some sort of sticky substance (possibly urine) poured over them to cement them together.

"Let's play drinking games!" Maureen proposes at eleven-thirty, following the conclusion of the evening's twelfth Benny-Collins-Maureen card game. (One should note than in the three most recent games, Roger dramatically declared that he would deign to participate, and then proceeded to thrash his three companions in the subsequent games. It was that, perhaps, which sparked Maureen's newfound interest in some sort of noncompetitive game that Roger would be unable to win.)

Somehow the allure of drinking games makes it impossible for Mark and Cindy to continue hiding in the loft's sole bedroom, and they emerge and are seated amongst the other four bohemians, forming a circle of six young adults who neither like each other very much nor seek anything out of this gathering other than an escape from reality, whatever that may be for each individual. Roger, for example, desires intoxication (and a chance to slip away with his stash and needle) so that he may forget that he has a _crush _on a bisexual male with a gorgeous girlfriend.

"What're we playing?" Cindy inquires as Benny and Collins acquire from the fridge a great deal of alcohol – four slender bottles of vodka, which is enough to intoxicate the six of them, no problem. Upon catching sight of the vodka, Cindy claps her hands together eagerly and suggests, "Why don't we just, you know, drink?"

"No," whines Maureen. "I like playing _games_."

Collins snorts loudly. "They're the perfect way to make one feel like a prepubescent girl."

Maureen juts her chin out at him and sticks her tongue out. Collins rolls his eyes, as does Roger, who for once is glad he had the intelligence to remain silent. After all, he can tell just from looking at her that Maureen is _vicious_. Viciousness is something Roger does not enjoy in people, particularly girls and people with whom he must associate. The one exception is Mark, who was vicious enough the previous night, running his nails down Roger's arms as though possessed by some kind of demonic being with an urge to scratch the sixteen-year-old's already-marred arms.

"Game," Mark announces. After a moment's pause, Roger echoes him, eyes downcast as though embarrassed that he is unable to utter his own opinion, something that is both mortifying and almost comfortable at the same time. After all, it saves him the trouble of having to _form _an opinion, and then possibly be blamed for it by someone who disagrees with said view. At least now, with Mark making Roger's decisions for him, Roger no longer has to endure others' pitying looks when he voices a thought that seems to just _scream _his age.

Benny crosses his arms over his chest and growls, "No games." Collins agrees with him, and says as much, his words profane and laced with the vodka that, _wow_, traveled through his system remarkably fast and should win some kind of award for that. Of course, to be a bohemian one must fit the description of "easily drunk", not unlike Roger's "cannot hold liquor". (That, in fact, is not entirely correct; capable of _holding _his liquor, Roger merely finds himself unable to behave normally under the influence of alcohol. Then again, he is sixteen, and few fully-grown adults can act normal while intoxicated, much less an underfed maybe-withdrawing-or-maybe-still-practicing junkie adolescent male lacking in any exceptional amount of testosterone.)

Cindy kicks her legs up on top of the table. "No games," she declares.

Shrill and loud, Maureen wails, "_Game_!"

But unfortunately for her, that is not how things work. Within ten minutes, each of the bohemians (or, as the case may be, faux-bohemians) finds him or herself lounged somewhere around the room, a cold bottle clasped between the hands of Roger, Collins, Benny and Mark, the latter of whom is forced to share his bottle of vodka with the nearby Cindy and Maureen. Very few words are spoken, with the exception of Maureen's occasional, "Why can't we play a _game_?"

At last, an exasperated Cindy snaps, "We can't play a game because you're a whiny _bitch_, Maureen, so deal with it."

"Catfight?" Collins mouths to Roger, who snickers. Mark shoots Roger a look from across the room, and Roger stares at his feet.

Neither amused nor at all entertained, Mark gets to his feet. "Roger, may I have a word with you in my room, please?" he asks, earning himself scandalized looks from Benny and Collins. Roger, obedient as always, gets to his feet and follows Mark into said bedroom, a bit concerned about what is to come. From the stern look on Mark's face, it is clear that Roger is not going to be rewarded for his behavior thus far, although why Mark is Roger's disciplinarian has yet to be disclosed.

"Roger," Mark begins, his voice booming due to the silence of the room. Roger meets the eyes of his partner, mildly alarmed. He waits for Mark to continue, and he does. "Roger," he repeats. It seems that he is gathering his thoughts, but a moment later, his thoughts are organized enough for him to proceed. "So far, you have been pretty good, as far as behavior goes. Well, there have been a few flaws – like your speaking out of turn and things like that, or having side conversations – but nothing that can't be fixed. All in all, you've been pretty good."

Under the impression that this is good news, Roger refrains from breaking into the relieved smile that he is almost tempted to express. He waits for the other half of Mark's lecture, sure to come soon. Unsurprisingly, Mark continues. "However," he utters, "I _have _noticed that you have a negative attitude toward Cindy and Maureen – Maureen in particular. And that is unnacceptable."

A part of Roger – a very small, big-mouthed part of Roger – wonders exactly why Mark finds it appropriate to critisize Roger's character flaws. But he casts it off as part of being in a relationship and sighs. "I'm sorry, Mark," he says softly. "It won't happen again."

"You're right, it won't," Mark tells Roger firmly. "Because I have punishment in mind for you."

Roger takes a step backward. "Punishment?" he repeats. "Mark, I really don't think…"

Mark interrupts him, however, with a gleam in his eye. "Yes, Roger, _punishment_," he tells him wickedly. "And that is simple. Until you prove to me that you have improved your attitude towards Maureen and Cindy, you are forbidden to speak to anyone apart from me."

Horrified, Roger tilts his head. "You're kidding, right?" he asks Mark uncertainly, hoping against hope that Mark is only joking. Where does Mark get off, _punishing _his boyfriend? But then, Roger's loudmouthed part of himself pipes up that Mark wouldn't have to punish Roger if his actions hadn't merited it. Again silenced by another side of himself, Roger lowers his gaze and resolves to be quiet. Whatever Mark wants…

"No, Roger, I am _not _kidding," Mark snaps. "And since you seem to think there's no reason to take me seriously, let me just add this: if you have any intention of maintaining a relationship with me, you will _listen _to me. Is that clear?"

_Listen to me_… Roger is strongly reminded of his father's authoritarian voice, issuing orders and demands and completely disregarding Roger's own preferences. But Mark is _not _his father – he's _kind _to Roger, he's even kind enough to try to have a relationship with him. He's just trying to improve who Roger is by correcting his flaws. Then he can be more perfect, like Mark.

"Yes, Mark, it's clear," Roger says numbly, and Mark nods, satisfied.

"Good," he tells Roger firmly. "Now come on, we're going to go back out there. Remember, you aren't to speak. Okay?"

Roger nods obediently. A step and a half behind Mark, he cautiously walks out of the bedroom and into the main portion of the loft, unprepared and ready at the same time to join the group once more.

Although his punishment is not at all physical, leaving no lasting marks on Roger's flesh, he can't help but feel an ache in his stomach as though Mark had punched him. Roger sits beside Collins in the room and rests a head on his friend's shoulder, throat closed up around imaginary tears as he wishes fiercely that he could say something, anything. The fact that he can, but _won't_, is enough to eliminate any possibility of Roger's desiring any further sips of vodka. When Collins holds out a bottle to his roommate, Roger merely shakes his head with a deep intake of breath.

However, Roger is willing to concede that to Cindy and Maureen, he offers a very faux-charming smile and is willing to go so far as to give a drunken Cindy his spot on the couch for sleeping quarters – not entirely his to give, as Collins and Benny too must occupy the couch on the evening in question – in an attempt to win Mark over.


	12. XII

**Streetlights and Starlight**

Morning in the loft is usually casual, lasting from twelve to three as a result of the bohemians' habit of sleeping until noon. Afternoon, then, is from four to eight, and evening – the most active part of the day – from nine to one. Night only begins at two, or at whatever time everyone returns from their evening "activity", be it a club or a bar or a date, the latter being rare for all but Benny.

The schedule is sloppily thrown together, never official but faltering only rarely. However, on this particular day it is almost rigid, with twelve-oh-one coinciding with Mark's rising in the faux-morning, his soft footsteps awakening Roger, a light sleeper from his many nights on the street.

"Good morning, Mark – " Roger begins, but then silences himself, remembering Mark's declaration from the night before. He hurriedly gets to his feet to distract himself, head bowed as he crosses the room and retrieves a tea kettle from underneath the sink. He then busies himself with the task of filling up the tea kettle, barely making eye contact with Mark for fear of upsetting him.

Mark, who acknowledges Roger's presence with only a curt nod, slides himself on top of the table. His legs dangle as he observes Roger's making of the tea, but about five minutes into this interlude, Mark whines, "Roger, can you get me socks?"

Roger nods obediently and sets off for the bedroom, where he retrieves socks and returns to Mark. Mark looks at the proferred items and shrugs. "Put 'em on me," he tells Roger firmly, and without a word of his own, Roger kneels down at Mark's feet – god, and it feels overtly submissive and awkward at the same time – before gently taking each of Mark's feet into his hands and carefully putting on said socks.

"Comfy?" Roger rasps.

Mark smiles. "Yes, Roger, and if you stay in that position for another minute, I could take a picture and never need porn again," he tells his loftmate confidentially, with a wicked grin. "And don't speak unless I ask you a question. I don't need to hear your whiny voice all the time, clear?"

"Clear," Roger whispers, and returns to the tea. The shrill whistling of the kettle has yet to come. However, a different type of whistling startles Roger as a yawning Collins sits up from his spot on the couch and bursts into a strident remix of some Christmas carol or another. Whistling has always been one of the philosopher's strong points, but this early in the morning it does not stop at being annoying – at this hour (twelve-oh-seven), it is excruciating. Yet, Roger is forbidden to speak, and Mark truthfully has no objection (or at least, none that he would voice to the slightly intimidating anarchist).

"Morning," Collins intones to his companions. "Nice sunshine," he adds to Roger, whose long locks are illuminated by the tiny rays of sunshine peeking in through the unintentionally- and unofficially-tinted windows.

Roger, whose speaking privileges have of course been revoked, merely stares at his feet. "Hey, what's wrong?" Collins asks his friend, genuinely worried. He kneels down beside Roger and fights back the panicked thoughts: _What if Mark went too far this time? What happened? _

The blonde shakes his head, and sparing him from painedly trying to hand-gesture to Collins without seeming ridiculous or in violation of Mark's rules, the tea kettle lets out a high-pitched squeal, demanding the bohemians' attention. The attention it craves is immediately supplied by Roger, who hurriedly fills a mug with tea and hands it to Mark. When Collins reaches out to take his own mug, Roger shakes his head and pours another one for his friend. Figuring that it is the least that he can do for his obviously confused friend, Roger proffers the mug to Collins, both thumbs tucked beneath the handle. Collins accepts it, but he looks skeptical.

"Roger, can you come talk to me? Uh – in the hallway?"

Mark considers forbidding Roger to do so, but is all-too-aware of the fact that any objection he might make would only result in complete and total exposure of the young men's unbalanced relationship. And of course, if anybody might object to said relationship – and have enough control over Roger to make it _stop_ – it would be Collins. So Mark merely pats Roger in the small of his back and shoves him towards the door, accompanied by an uncertain Collins.

A moment's consideration of whether or not Mark ought to briefly give Roger speaking privileges (and then make up for it by punishing him some other way later) ends in the negative as Mark decides it is really unlikely that Roger will maintain his voicelessness while in the hallway with Collins _anyway_. Of course, that too would merit some kind of extension of Roger's punishment. Mark smugly swings his legs out to kick the sink as he revels in his own brilliance – or rather, assumed brilliance .

Roger and Collins step into the hallway dividing the loft from the stairwell, and Collins immediately turns to his long-time roommate. "Okay, Roger," he says sternly, "what's the deal?"

Roger shrugs helplessly. He is afraid that Mark is listening to the conversation. He is afraid that Collins knows what is going on and will put a stop to it. He is also afraid that if this is punishment for a minor offense, he will recive _physical _punishment in the future, or some other kind of torture that far exceeds a temporary loss of speaking privileges.

"Look, man," Collins says, placing his palms on Roger's shoulders. "I know I said this kind of thing, this relationship, is okay for you, but I was wrong. All right? What Mark's doing to you isn't good. Does he ever give you orders you feel like you can't say no to? Or tell you to do things you don't want to do?"

Roger turns away in a sudden burst of adolescent defiance. He is sixteen. He doesn't have to hear this from Collins, even if he personally has been harboring the same thoughts. It is one thing to think something negative about one's own relationship, and another thing entirely to hear it from a twenty-odd-year-old roommate with anarchic philosophical ideas.

"_Listen_, Roger," Collins says fiercely, and he spins the teenager around to face him so that their faces are nose-to-nose. Roger tries to yank himself away, but Collins is of course much stronger, not to mention more motivated, than Roger is. He is passionate as he utters his next few words to Roger. "You're in an unhealthy relationship. I was in one too, okay? See these?"

Collins, in a smooth solitary motion, slides his shirt up to reveal a bruised torso speckled with cuts and even what looks like a burn. Roger hisses – not an _s_-sound, but rather, a noise that sounds like the hiss one might express upon witnessing another's rather brutal sunburn, or upon being informed of a violent murder. It is a sympathetic noise, very alert and far less detatched than Roger had been mere moments prior.

"Yeah," Collins continues. "Bruises and shit. His name was Stephen, and he was treating me the same way you're getting treated now. First he was doing stupid shit, like telling me not to talk to anyone, and then he started making me – well, you don't need to know about that. Just, Roger, when Mark's giving you fuckery, think about this, okay?"

Roger shakes his head.

"No?" Collins inquires, echoing Roger's unspoken word. "Why not?"

But of course, Roger is not permitted to speak. That is his first thought. His immediate next thought is that he doesn't give a flying _fuck _what Mark says; Mark isn't here right now and it's a stupid rule anyway. As it turns out, the latter thought overpowers the former, and Roger, before he knows it, is saying that "I'm scared." And the fact that he truly _is _afraid startles Roger more than anything else. It is a small discovery, either caused or enforced by his own declaration of it, but however he came to terms with it, Roger realizes that it is the truth.

"You're scared," Collins echoes. It's funny; he never imagined having to deal with a sixteen-year-old, particularly not in such a context – explaining why his homosexual dominant-submissive relationship is unhealthy and abusive. Part of knowing that he was gay for an early age – eleven, in fact – includes Collins' conditioning to not expect to have to deal with children. Roger, however, is just about as infantile as they come.

And it is also alarming that Collins, while he never shows it, knows all about dealing with fear.

"You're scared that Mark would hurt you if you tried to break up with him or something?" he verifies.

Roger nods.

Collins sighs. "Roger, man," he murmurs with an arm around the adolescent's shoulder, "I don't know what you should do."

"Well, how did you break up with that Steve guy?" Roger inquires.

Collins' eyes suddenly glaze over as though he has come across an upsetting memory. Roger stutters frantically, seeing his friend's sudden depression and wanting to repair it, but Collins holds out a hand to stop him. "Nah, it's okay, Rog. Um, the thing is, I didn't break up with him. He did. I mean, he dumped me."

Roger wrinkles his nose. "_Why_?" he wants to know. "I mean – well – oh, fuck. Never mind. Nothing." He blushes bright red and turns in the other direction. Collins, who has never seen this expression in Roger before – not even directed towards Mark, on whom Roger supposedly has (had?) a crush – is very curious as to what it could mean. Forming a mental list, he concludes that it is entirely possible that perhaps the subject of Roger's "crush" is different than the one with whom Roger is currently fraternizing. It is a slightly unnerving thought, and he shakes his head to clear it.

"Hey, Col?" Roger asks quietly, peering over the ledge of the stairwell.

"Yeah?"

Roger chooses his words carefully. "Uh – do you ever think about, you know… ending it?"

Collins' eyes bulge. He did _not _expect that from Roger, the sixteen-year-old who has always seemed to make a twisted game out of deflecting life's challenges. And yet, Collins suspects that of all the suburbanites who relocate to New York City, to the island of Manhattan or of a neighboring one, nearly all of them must consider suicide at one point. It seems a rite of passage, and if it is, Roger has certainly earned his place on the island. The question remains, however, whether or not he will elect to keep it.

"Not for a long time," Collins tells his friend, a thousand percent honest. "But yeah, I have. Why?" He attempts to sound offhand, not wanting to scare Roger by sounding obsessively caring. He knows that an overload of emotion scares Roger.

Roger shrugs. "Just wondering if it's normal," he mumbles.

"It is," Collins assures him. "Unless you _do _it. Then it's, you know – just don't, okay, Roger? I love you, man."

"I love you too, Collins," Roger replies, but his words are muffled and he sound unsure. "Hey, man, you stoned or something?"

Collins, who is absolutely _not _stoned, merely mumbles, "Maybe a little… let's go back inside, Rog, 'kay?"

Roger's face falls, but he falls into step behind his friend anyway. "Yeah, sure, whatever, Col," he replies, and it breaks Collins' heart to know that Roger is not only submissively obedient to all the words spoken by Mark Cohen, but to everyone else's commands as well. Eyes down and hardly concentrating on his pretense anymore, Collins enters the loft and curls back up on his couch. He tries to pretend that Benny never went to college, and that Mark never existed.


	13. XIII

**Streetlights and Starlight**

The loft is nearly empty and nearly silent. Mark and Roger are having a "discussion" in the bedroom, words muffled beyond the closed door. Benny and Cindy are taking a walk along the Hudson – Cindy's idea; she brought bread crumbs to feed the birds, bread crumbs that would be put to better use feeding some of the loft's hungry occupants. However, Benny cannot bring himself to deny the blonde girl this small indulgence. (Nor can he deny himself the indulgence of ogling Cindy's breasts for an hour.) This leaves Collins and Maureen to themselves, each waking up from a long, fuzzy sleep. Maureen, in fact, woke up an hour ago only to be banished from the bedroom, at which point she fell asleep on the couch following Roger's moving into the bedroom.

"Hey," Maureen says, her voice already clear despite the early hour of one-thirty in the "morning." She is sitting up, hands holding her bare feet with her fingers moving up and down her magenta toenails.

"Hey," Collins echoes. His voice, like any normal person's just after waking up, is rough and raspy. "Sleep well?" Asking such is a habit.

Maureen shrugs. "Not really," she admits. "I had this, um, I had this dream."

"I'm a philosopher," Collins informs her. "Go ahead."

The girl considers for a moment. "You'll think it's weird," she warns her companion, but continues regardless. "Okay, so, you know that Roger kid?" _That Roger kid_. "Well, I dreamed that he and me were talking – just about something stupid – and then Marky came over to us and said Roger's not allowed to talk to anyone. Then he started hitting him. Punching and slapping and stuff. I told him to chill the fuck out, you know, like a normal person, and he just said that Roger 'needs' to be hit. And he kept doing it. And then… Roger was… he was…"

"Dead?" Collins supplies. He is familiar with similar nightmares. It isn't as though he hasn't had his share of dreams centering around Roger's death, or Roger's abuse, or any other subject concerning Roger's poor health. He even had one dream in which Roger was diagnosed with some fatal disease that Collins can no longer remember. But the most featured topic is, in fact, the boy's death, and it is barely surprising that this girl – who knows naught about Roger apart from his hair color and fucked-up relationship with Mark – is having these dreams as well.

Maureen nods. "Yeah."

Collins pauses. "Well… have you seen any exchanges? Between Roger and Mark, I mean?"

The brunette shrugs. "Not really," she confesses, "but Mark said Roger's name last night." She leaves it hanging in the air awkwardly.

Collins, who was absoutely _not _expecting to be told that, replies in the best way he knows how: "_I _heard Mark say Roger's name last night."

"No," Maureen begins, but Collins cuts her off to inform her that he knows what she meant; he was only kidding. Maureen blushes. "Oh. Okay." Then, after a moment's hesitation, she inquires, "Well, what do you think? I mean, you're the one who's so super-smart."

Collins thanks her for the compliment before considering. "Well," he says slowly, "I know a few things about Mark and Roger's, uh, relationship. Of which there is one. I mean, before you were here, they were…"

"Fucking like bunnies?" It is Maureen's turn to supply a phrase for Collins' benefit, and her smirk provokes Collins' blush. "It's okay. I knew that already. Go on."

As his blush fades, Collins proceeds, "Well, yeah, they were fucking. And it was kind of… it was all Mark, really. Roger's only sixteen, and Mark was giving him orders and making Roger be, like, his little slave." He has fancy words for everything he says, but there is no reason for him to use them here, due to the fact that he would only have to explain them to Maureen _anyway_. In his mind, however, he sees things more clearly in the usage of larger words than smaller ones, mainly because of his conditioning to _only _use big words.

Maureen sighs. "So… like, abuse?" she varifies. "I mean, was he making Roger do stuff he didn't want to do? Because that really doesn't sound like Mark. He's into kinky shit, I mean, he likes tying me up – but he doesn't ever _force _me."

"No," Collins concedes, "he never forced Roger, to my knowledge. Well, he might have. I didn't hear of him doing that. And Roger is usually pretty good about telling me things. – No, what Mark does to Roger is that he makes him think that he wants things that he actually doesn't want. So everything is consensual, but there's a fine line. He agrees to it, but he doesn't _want _it. He wants affection from someone. Because it's been so long for him since he's had love from anyone, and I can tell that."

Maureen nods solemnly. "I know what you mean," she says softly. "So we obviously have to do something about it."

"No, you don't," says Mark as he emerges from his bedroom. His eyes are blazing. As he opens the door, Roger can be seen asleep on the floor. Collins sucks in a sharp breath, and Maureen's eyes widen. Mark does not allow Collins and Maureen to rationalize the situation, however, because he continues to speak. "Maureen," Mark says cautiously, "Collins is obviously incorrect here. You know me. Would I abuse someone like that?"

Maureen's head snaps from Collins to Mark, resembling a table tennis spectator. "Maybe," she says slowly, diplomatically, eyes down at her feet and hands. "I don't know." She is and sounds completely honest as she explains, "I know that if you wanted someone or something, you wouldn't hesitate to go after it. This is just a matter of how far you'd hunt someone down before you're finally satisfied."

Collins is a lover of metaphors, and he cannot conceal his smile following Maureen's declaration. Mark reaches out and punches his roommate's shoulder, and Collins springs to his feet. "Don't fucking touch me," he growls, and narrows his eyebrows.

"Don't fucking brainwash my girlfriend, then," Mark yells back. He throws another punch, this one landing dead-center in the middle of Collins' face. His nose, to be precise.

Roger, rubbing his eyes, emerges from the bedroom. "What's – holy shit!" he exclaims, and dashes forward to Collins just in time to see Mark's hand snap back against his side. "What the fuck did you do to him?" he yells at Mark. Overreacting, yes, he is, but Roger loves his best friend and cannot stand to see him hurt, particularly by someone else he loves.

"I punched him," Mark replies coolly. "And I didn't give you permission to speak, Roger, so shut the fuck up and mind your own fucking business."

Maureen, who really doesn't know Roger as well as she knows Mark, still finds it in her heart to place a hand on Roger's shoulder. "Wait a minute, Mark," she says carefully, but Mark ignores her.

"Everyone should just mind their own fucking business!" he yells. "It's nobody's business if I'm hitting my boyfriend, or, or my roommate, except for mine and whoever I'm fucking hitting! It's my life! You're not my fucking parents!" At the mention of his parents, Mark feels compelled to make a declaration going against his parents' true obsession: "Jesus fucking Christ!"

"You're Jewish," Maureen points out quietly, but Mark just huffs angrily and turns away from her.

"Leave me the fuck alone," he yells, and with a heavy punch to Roger's stomach, he turns and walks out of the loft, down the steps, and eventually outside.

In Mark's wake, Roger is left, doubled-over clutching his side. It is not the punch that hurt so much as the knowledge that his beloved Mark is far from perfect, which was Roger's initial suspicion of him. No, Mark is certainly not perfect; he _hit _Collins, who is about as close to perfect as one could possibly get (in Roger's opinion). And as Roger now begins to see, Mark's treatment of everyone he loves is bizarre and abusive, and simply _wrong_. This hits him at about the same moment that it hits Maureen, and with Collins clutching his nose in silent agony, Maureen and Roger embrace in a tear-filled hug. It is dramatic, yes, and cue the corny music, but it is simply two mistreated individuals discovering the true horrors behind someone they once adored and admired.

"I can't believe it," is one of the murmured phrases oft-repeated by Maureen and Roger. They collapse onto the couch together, and eventually Collins does as well. Each of the three has an arm around at least one of the other two, with Roger in the middle, an arm around both.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you the first time," Roger tells Collins in a near-whisper. "I'm sorry." To Maureen he inquires, "Is he as bad with you as he was with me?"

Maureen does not want to answer, and says as much. "Let's not make this about Mark," she says. "Let's make it about us." She gets up, crosses the room to reach the refrigerator, and returns with a bottle of beer. It is half-empty – no, half-_full_ – but it will do. "It's never too early to drink," Maureen proclaims, and takes a long swig of it before handing it to Roger.

The bottle, once empty, skates across the table with all the precision of a boxer's final punch before exiting the ring for good and moving on to bigger and better things.

**FIN.**


End file.
